Master of Science in Computational Linguistics
The master's degree program (MS) in computational linguistics is an intensive two-year program that prepares you for mastery in the field, whether you want to work in industry or pursue your PhD.
The computational linguistics training at Brandeis enables both initial success and satisfying long term careers in this burgeoning field. You'll find your skills in demand in a variety of areas that include speech recognition, artificial intelligence, machine translation, big data, automated text analysis and web search.
Why Brandeis for Computational Linguistics?
As a student in this program, you will benefit from individualized teaching, advising, and mentoring as you deepen your skills in computational linguistics. We offer extensive career support and networking opportunities, and you'll have access to our broad community of alumni.
Careers and Alumni
Our computational linguistics graduates enjoy a very high placement rate in both industry jobs and PhD programs.
Our alumni working in industry focus on areas that include speech recognition, natural language understanding, robotics and artificial intelligence, machine translation, healthcare, call center analytics, internet search, financial services, and cloud computing. Visit our alumni page for a listing of specific companies and placements.
A smaller but significant portion of our alumni go on to top PhD programs and academic careers in computational linguistics, computer science, and linguistics, at universities that have included Brandeis, Tufts University, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania, and University of Washington.
Curriculum
The curriculum is designed to progressively prepare you for a successful long-term career in computational linguistics. The first year curriculum is tailored to the level of the students entering the program. It allows students who need it to establish a strong foundation in both computer science and linguistics, while also enabling those with prior background in both fields to begin more advanced coursework from the start.
In the second year, students take advanced courses in computational linguistics, as well as courses on applied or theoretically oriented topics within computational linguistics, natural language processing, computer science, and linguistics.
For-credit internships are available and encouraged, with direct help from our faculty. Opportunities are also available to be involved in Computational Linguistics research labs. The program culminates in a semester- or year-long internship, capstone project or master's thesis.
For detailed program information, please review our student handbook and the University Bulletin.
Financial Aid and Scholarship Support
All of our students are highly qualified for the program and receive a merit scholarship award that is renewed for their second year as long as they remain in good academic standing. For information about the cost of this program, please refer to the Cost of Attendance calculator. There is no additional application required to be considered for merit scholarships. If you qualify, you might also consider working as a research assistant or a teaching assistant.
Application Requirements
Please visit the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences website to learn about the application requirements.
“Brandeis…provides an amazing amount of support in terms of networking and career fairs. They have connections not only with smaller local companies and start-ups, but also a lot of big name companies, like Amazon and Apple. I was pretty busy my last semester with phone interviews and ended up with multiple job offers, which I could not have done without Brandeis’ extended network of people in the industry. ”
Keelan Armstrong, MA’14