Learning how to design high-level software that guarantees safety and correctness while still being in control of its complexity.
Software plays a role in almost every aspect of our daily lives and in every organisation anywhere in the world. It can often be a crucial key to their success. Well-structured software that is attuned to an organisation’s needs and future plans can be cost effective, improve efficiency, offer better services and be innovative. Many companies, in every branch out there, are therefore looking for highly skilled software specialists. Graduates of the Master’s specialisation in Software Science will have no trouble finding a job.
Producing software is not merely a technological enterprise but a deeply scientific and creative one as well. Modern cars drive on 20 million lines of code. How do we develop all this software and control its complexity? How do we ensure correctness of software on which the lives in a speeding car literally depend on? This specialisation goes far beyond basic code writing. It’s about analysing and testing code in order to improve it as well as simplify it.
Why study Software Science at Radboud University?
- Although not the only focus, our programme puts a lot of emphasis on embedded software and functional programming.
- We teach a unique range of software analysis techniques and application down to practical/commercial use in industry.
- This specialisation builds on the strong international reputation of the Institute for Computing and Information Sciences (iCIS) in areas such as model based and virtual product development, advanced programming, and domain specific languages. We also closely collaborate with the Embedded Systems Institute.
- Our approach is pragmatic as well as theoretical. As an academic, we don’t just expect you to understand and make use of the appropriate tools, but also to program and develop your own.
- For your Master’s research we have a large number of companies like Philips, ASML and NXP offering projects. There are always more projects than students.
- Thanks to free electives students can branch out to other Computing Science domain at Radboud University such as security, machine learning or more in-depth mathematical foundations of computer science.
- The job opportunities are excellent: some of our students get offered jobs before they’ve even graduated and almost all of our graduates have positions within six months after graduating.
See the website
http://www.ru.nl/masters/softwarescience Admission requirements for international students
1. A completed Bachelor's degree in Computing Science or related area
In order to get admission to this Master’s you will need a completed Bachelor’s degree in Computing Sciences or a related discipline.
2. A proficiency in English
In order to take part in the programme, you need to have fluency in English, both written and spoken. Non-native speakers of English without a Dutch Bachelor's degree or VWO diploma need one of the following:
- TOEFL score of >575 (paper based) or >232 (computer based) or >90 (internet based)
- IELTS score of >6.5
- Cambridge Certificate of Advanced English (CAE) or Certificate of Proficiency in English (CPE), with a mark of C or higher
Career prospects
Writing good software is a highly creative process, which requires the ability to approach problems in entirely novel ways through computational thinking. Besides creativity, a professional software scientist also has fine problem-solving, analytical, programming, and communication skills. By combining software programming, model-checking techniques and human intellect, software scientists can make a real difference to help and improve the devices that govern such a large part of our lives.
The job perspective for our graduates is excellent. Industry desperately needs software science specialists at an academic level, and thus our graduates have no difficulty in find an interesting and challenging job. Several of our graduates decide to go for a PhD and stay at a university, but most of our students go for a career in industry. They then typically either find a job at a larger company as consultant or programmer, or they start up their own software company.
Examples of companies where our graduates end up include the big Dutch high-tech companies such as Océ, ASML, Vanderlande and Philips, ICT service providers such as Topicus and Info Support and companies started by Radboud graduates, like AIA and GX.
Our research in this field
The Master’s programme in Computing Sciences is offered in close collaboration with the research Institute for Computing and Information Sciences (iCIS). Research at iCIS is organised in three different research sections:
- Model Based System Development
- Digital Security
- Intelligent Systems
The Software Science specialisation builds on the strong international reputation of iCIS in areas such model based and virtual product development, advanced programming, and domain specific languages.
Research project and internship
For your research project, you may choose to do your internship at:
- A company
---- SME, such as as Océ, Vanderlande, Clarity or GX
---- multinational, such as the Philips, ASML, NXP, Logica or Reed Business Media
- A governmental institute, such as the (Dutch) Tax Authorities or the European Space Agency.
- Any department at Radboud University or another university with issues regarding software, like studying new techniques for loop bound analysis, the relation between classical logic and computational systems, or e-mail extension for iTasks.
- One of the iCIS departments, specialising on different aspects of Software Science.
- Abroad, under supervision of researchers from other universities that we collaborate with. For instance, exploring a new technique for automata learning at Uppsala University in Sweden, or verifying the correctness of Erlang refactoring transformations at the Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) in Budapest, Hungary.
See the website
http://www.ru.nl/masters/softwarescience
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