Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)
HCI Concentration
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)Troy, NY
Rensselaer offers a Master of Science program in information technology and PhD opportunities involving IT-related research in a broad spectrum of disciplinary programs across the campus.
The Human-Computer Interaction Concentration prepares IT professionals for careers in information technology design and development by emphasizing the ways technical skills in IT can be applied in a user-centered rather than a strictly technology-centered or developer-centered way.
In the HCI Concentration, students are given the opportunity to:
· practice the research and design skills necessary to produce effective, usable human interfaces for IT systems
· deepen their understanding of cognitive and social theories underlying effective human interface design,
· acquire the ability to make strategic decisions based on user data which will enhance the processes and products associated with IT design
Students with an HCI concentration may go on to careers in fields such as User-Centered Design, Human Factors and Usability Engineering, and Quality Assurance, contributing to a wide variety of hardware and software product areas.
Students seeking admission must have highly competitive academic records, submit scores from the GRE exam, and have completed course work that is equivalent to the following three Rensselaer courses prior to applying:
· CSCI-1100 Computer Science I –Fundamentals of Computer Science -An introduction to algorithm design and analysis, programming, and use of the World Wide Web for information dissemination and retrieval. Additional topics include basic computer organization; internal representation of scalar and array data; use of top- down design and subprograms to tackle complex problems; abstract data types. Enrichment material as time allows. Interdisciplinary case studies, numerical and nonnumerical applications
· CSCI-1200 Computer Science II –Data Structures, Introductory Algorithm Analysis Programming concepts: functions, parameter passing, pointers, arrays, strings, structs, classes, templates. Mathematical tools: sets, functions, and relations, O-notation, complexity of algorithms, proof by induction. Data structures and their representations: data abstraction and internal representation, sequences, trees, binary search trees, associative structures. Algorithms: searching and sorting, generic algorithms, iterative and recursive algorithms. Methods of testing correctness and measuring performance.
· CSCI-2300 "Advanced" Data Structures and Algorithms -Data structures and algorithms, and the mathematical techniques necessary to design and analyze them. Basic data structures: lists, associative structures, trees. Mathematical techniques for designing algorithms and analyzing worst-case and expected-case algorithm efficiency. Advanced data structures: balanced trees, tries, heaps, priority queues, graphs. Searching, sorting. Algorithm design techniques: dynamic programming, greedy algorithms, divide-and-conquer, backtracking. Example graph, string, geometric, and numeric algorithms.
Deadlines by Term of Study
Fall (August - December) January 15
Spring (January - May) August 15
Summer (May - August) January 15
Source: http://www.rpi.edu/dept/IT/grad/hci.html