Foundation Requirements
Foundation courses ensure that all students in the MS BMI program have a strong foundation on which to build the rest of the program. These courses not only provide essential prerequisite knowledge and skills for other courses in the program, but they also contain a distinct body of knowledge that is an important part of the BMI professional's education. Foundation courses cannot be used to satisfy the 36 semester hours required for the MS in BMI degree. The foundation courses required for an admitted applicant will be determined in close consultation with the GPC and graduate advisor.
For the health informatics track: applicants should have a background in anatomy, physiology, cell biology or equivalent (any health sciences degree). Students with undergraduate degrees in other disciplines will usually have to take some foundation courses. Occasionally, a student's work experience may be sufficient to waive one or more foundation courses.
For the bioinformatics track: applicants should have a background in programming languages, data structures & algorithms, statistics, math or experimental methods (any engineering, computer science related degree) Students with undergraduate degrees in other disciplines will usually have to take foundation courses. Occasionally, a student's work experience may be sufficient to waive one or more foundation courses.
Required Courses
Each student will take a common set of core competencies for a total of 18 hours. These hours include:
- 3 graduate hours from the biomedical core
- 3 graduate hours from research & quantitative methods core
- 6 graduate hours from the computing core
- 6 hours from the informatics core
Electives
Students must select 6 hours from their track electives and 6 hours from the shared track electives for a total of 12 hours.
Exit Requirements
Thesis BIOI 8990 - 6 hours. The thesis will consist of an original work of research, design or development in the student's area of interest.
OR
In extenuating circumstances, students not interested in writing a thesis may take 6 hours of additional coursework and pass a written comprehensive examination. The comprehensive examination must be taken in the final semester of study.
Total: 36 program hours.
Other Program-Related Information:
MS Supervisory Committee
Upon completion of at least 9 hours of coursework or one year (whichever comes first) in the MS in BMI program, a supervisory committee is established for each MS student. The thesis chair and committee will have responsibility for planning and supervising the student's MS thesis.