Minor in Computer Science & Software Engineering (CSSE)

The CSSE minor provides students from non-technical disciplines a supplement to their major with a practical set of courses focused on information technology, computer science, and software engineering. This minor will help prepare you for a variety of industrial, government and business positions involving computation and process management.

Courses for the CSSE minor are programming-intensive and require a strong foundational knowledge of programming skills to be successful.

Declaring the minor

The CSSE minor has the following prerequisites before it can be declared:

  • CSS 132 (C++) or 142 (Java; recommended): Computer Programing I
  • CSS 133 (C++) or 143 (Java; recommended): Computer Programing II

The associated skills labs for the prerequisite lectures (CSSSKL 132, 133, 142, 143) are not themselves prerequisites for the CSSE minor, but the lectures all require concurrent enrollment in the labs.

The prerequisites must be completed (not in-progress) before declaring the minor. Once you have completed the prerequisites, contact the academic advisor for your major at any time to declare the minor.

FIND YOUR ADVISOR ON NAVIGATE

Program requirements

Minimum credits and grades

  • A minimum of 30 credits must be earned for this minor
  • A minimum of 15 credits for the minor must be earned at UW Bothell campus
  • Each course used for the minor must be completed with a grade of 2.0 or higher

Core requirements (20 credits)

  • [Prerequisite] CSS 132 or 142 (2.7 min.): Computer Programming I
  • [Prerequisite] CSS 133 or 143 (2.5 min.): Computer Programming II
  • CSS 342: Advanced Data Structures, Algorithms, and Discrete Mathematics I
  • CSS 360: Software Engineering

Elective requirements (10 credits)

You must complete a selection of “CSS” elective coursework, meeting the following criteria:

  • You must take at least ten (10) credits (usually two courses)
  • At least five (5) credits must be 300-level or higher
  • The remaining five (5) credits must be 200-level or higher
View CSS course descriptions

Restrictions

  • Students in the Computer Science & Software Engineering (CSSE) and Applied Computing majors may not earn this minor due to the overlap in content.
  • No student may receive more than one of the CSSE or Information Technology minors due to the overlap in content.
  • Students in a Business major or minor may not use CSS 301 (Technical Writing) or CSS 350 (Management Principles) as an elective.

Registration

Important: Due to high demand for CSS courses, we cannot guarantee that there will always be space available for CSS minor students. Registration for students in minors is restricted until close to the beginning of each quarter.

To ensure you have the best chance of taking the courses you need, we strongly recommend completing the registration request form.

Submit a CSS Registration Request

Petitions

Computing-related courses that are not included on the elective list are considered on a case-by-case basis. If you have a syllabus, letter from the instructor, or other detailed description for the class you wish to use as an elective, you may submit a petition to request for the course to count.

Submit a CSS major / minor petition

A minimum of 15 credits used for this minor must be taken at UW Bothell, which means that a maximum of 15 credits may be taken elsewhere (including other UW campuses).