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Undergraduate Degree Programs

CSE's undergraduate programs help build a strong foundation for our programmers with a great understanding of the fundamentals. We also offer a great social networking environment for our students. As you know, CSE is embedded in almost every aspect of daily life, so we feel it is necessary to teach important and relevant material in every class we teach. We believe it's important to teach students technology that may solve society's problems in fields such as the environment, medicine, robotics, social services, etc.

Per UC San Diego's Career Services survey, common starting salaries for CSE majors from UC San Diego are $68,000 - $83,000 plus benefits. Computer science and computer engineering jobs are some of the fastest growing, recession-proof professions in the country.

Join the CSE Department and you to can reap all of these rewards!

First step-first class, learning to program

Learning the basics is important in computer science and computer engineering. We offer several introductory course tracks for CSE students. The lower division courses prepare our students to become knowledgeable programmers.  

We offer an advisory exam to help students figure out which course to start with first quarter at UC San Diego.  The exam covers material students complete in CSE 8A/8AL.  If a student passes this exam, they are ready to take CSE 11.  Take the "CSE Advisory Exam" to find out where to start.

Lower division programming classes

In their first two years of study at UC San Diego, CSE students are prepared for advanced studies in programming. As part of this preparation, students will complete the following courses whether they are following the computer science curriculum or the computer engineering curriculum.

Upper division programming classes, advanced studies

In their junior and senior years, CSE students will study advanced courses in theory, techniques of algorithms, hardware design, and software development in the upper division courses. The core set of upper division courses enhance students' breadth of knowledge and also provides a deep understanding in these areas.

"Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes."
– Edsger Dijkstra



by Dr. Radut.