Bachelor’s – CLASIC Accelerated Master’s Program

Bachelor’s Accelerated Master’s from Linguistics to MS in Computational Linguistics, Analytics, Search and Informatics (CLASIC)

The Linguistics department and the CLASIC Professional Master's program offer a Bachelor's – Accelerated Master's degree for students with strong abilities and motivations who are interested in computational linguistics.

Students in this program begin graduate coursework as undergraduates and continue in the CLASIC Program after graduating with their BA to complete the MS within three semesters. A total of 146 credit hours are required.

Preparing to apply

Students should consult with both their Linguistics undergraduate advisor and the CLASIC graduate advisor when considering applying to this BAM program.

  • Planning for application should begin while selecting courses for the fall term of the sophomore year;
  • Application to the BAM should take place during the junior year.
    Application Deadlines:
    Fall applications - October 15
    Spring applications - March 15

Before application to the BAM program is approved, students must declare the Computational Linguistics undergraduate track and complete the following prerequisites:

  • Start with programming, preferably CSCI 1300 Computer Science 1 (requires Calculus 1) or LING 1200 Programming for Linguistics.
  • Take 2 of the 3 CompLing track core courses (which require LING 2000 as a prerequisite and may have CS prerequisites as well):
    • LING 4632/5632 Machine Learning and Linguistics
    • LING /CSCI 3832/5832 Computational Linguistics
    • LING 4200/5200 Computational Corpus Linguistics
  • Take one of the following courses in Computer Science as an elective:
    • CSCI 3104 Algorithms (requires Calculus 2)
    • CSCI 3022 Introduction to Data Science with Probability and Statistics (requires CSCI 1300 CS 1 and CSCI 2270 CS 2: Data Structures)
    • CSCI 2824 Discrete Structures (requires CSCI 1300)

In addition, in the semester of the junior year in which the BAM application is submitted, the student must have completed by or be enrolled in a 5000-level qualifying course, as follows:

  • LING 5420 Morphology and Syntax (if LING 4420 has not already been taken)
  • LING 5030 Linguistic Phonetics
  • LING 5430 Semantics & Pragmatics

Admission to the BAM program will not be decided until midterm or final grades for the qualifying course have been made available to the admissions committee. CLASIC will occasionally consider requests to use a different LING MA course as the qualifying course.

NOTE: Undergraduates cannot register themselves for graduate courses. Students already in the BAM program and those planning to apply should contact the CLASIC Program Manager atclasic_contact@colorado.edu, who will help register them for graduate courses.

How to Apply

Step 1. At least two weeks before the Spring or Fallapplication deadline, applicants should complete the BAM “intent application” on the Graduate School website.

Step 2. At least two weeks before the deadline, applicants should request two recommendations, which must be from:

  • the instructor of one of the CS courses taken; and
  • the instructor of the LING qualifying course.

Students should talk to the two instructors in advance to ask if they agree to be recommenders.

Applicants must fill in and sign the CLASIC BAM Student Waiver form, which will ask for the instructors' names and email addresses. The Waiver form will be routed to CLASIC, who will contact the instructors to request theirrecommendations.

The Waiver form should be completed at least two weeks before theapplication deadline to allow time for CLASIC to contact the instructors and receive their recommendations.

Step 3. Applicants should send a current unofficial transcript toclasic_contact@colorado.edu, along with a short personal statementwith any information relevant for the admissions committee.
NOTE! This statement is not required, it is only for special circumstances that need clarification.

If the application to the BAM program is not approved or if the student decide to withdraw from the program, any graduate courses completed satisfactorily will count towards the undergraduate degree as upper division electives or as replacements for the corresponding required courses (5420 for 4420, 5430 for 3430, 5030 + 5410 for 3100). Consult the Graduate Advisor for full information and advice.


Completing the BAM program

Students accepted into the BAM must meet the requirements for the BA and the requirements for the MS.

Advising - BAM students should continue working with their undergraduate advisor in Linguistics to plan the courses needed to fulfill all the BA requirements and also consult with the CLASIC Graduate Advisor to choose appropriate graduate-level courses. The undergraduate and CLASIC advisors can also help strategize the best use of the overlap allowed between the two degrees.

Prior to receiving the BA, the student will complete:

  • 15 undergraduate course credits from elective or required courses within the major.
  • 5 hours of upper-division language, as required for the BA (or an additional LING elective, if the student's non-English language proficiency is already above the third-year college level).
  • 12 graduate course credits. These include credits from the qualifying course plus three required or elective courses for the MS.
Important note!
  • Only 12 graduate credits (4 courses) taken before receiving the BA can be counted toward the MS; and
  • Only 6 credits (2 courses) can be double counted for both degrees.

In the semester they complete the BA requirements, BAM students apply to graduate with their BA degree and submit a master’s continuation form to move from undergraduate to graduate student status.

Continuing at the graduate level, students take the remaining required and elective courses needed for the MS, completing 32 graduate credits. See the for the CLASIC degree.