The College of William & Mary offers students the opportunity to pursue graduate studies in the area of operations research in a collegial, friendly environment with small class sizes and high faculty-student interaction - a tradition rooted in the university's 300-year old history as the nation's second oldest institution of higher learning.
Recognizing the important overlap between computer science and operations research, the College redesigned its operations research curriculum in 1999 to offer a M.S. with a specialization in Computational Operations Research (COR) administered by the Computer Science Department in cooperation with the Department of Mathematics. Qualified students may elect to continue graduate work in operations research leading to a Ph.D. in either the Computer Science Department (with a computational emphasis) or the Applied Science Department (with an applied mathematics and modeling emphasis). These opportunities are facilitated by the participation of the departments of Mathematics, Computer Science, and Applied Science in the Computational Science Cluster, a federation of departments and schools at William & Mary committed to fostering research and education in computational science.
A wide range of courses are taught by COR faculty in the Department of Mathematics and the Department of Computer Science. Course offerings include linear programming, discrete optimization, nonlinear programming, deterministic and stochastic models, statistical decision theory, reliability, analysis of algorithms, discrete-event simulation, simulation languages, and a full range of computer science courses. Qualified students can normally fulfill the M.S. requirements in three semesters. The small size of graduate classes permits close faculty-student interaction.
For information concerning applications, contact Vanessa
Godwin at email: cor@cs.wm.edu,
(voice) 757-221-3455, or
(fax) 757-221-1717.
For information concerning Computational Operations
Research,
contact Professor Rex K. Kincaid at
e-mail: rrkinc@math.wm.edu,
(voice) 757-221-2038, or (fax) 757-221-2988 or
any of the faculty members listed below.
If you have questions about what Operations Research is, or what type of jobs people with Operations Research degrees do then try the following link for OR information
The Earl Gregg Swem Library contains over 3.5 million cataloged volumes, microforms, government documents, manuscripts and maps for scholarly research and study. The Library maintains an up-to-date collection of periodicals and books in the mathematical and computing sciences.
The Computer Science department maintains a network of Unix and Linux workstations to support the research, curriculum, and publishing needs of faculty and graduate students. This local network is connected to the Internet.
The following sample curriculum indicates one sequence of courses that can be taken to fulfill the M.S. degree requirements.
Fall Semester I
Spring Semester I
Fall Semester II
Spring Semester II
A variety of elective courses exist at the College that may be substituted in the above sample curriculum. All plans of study are subject to the approval of a student's graduate committee.
Applications for admission can be obtained by writing or calling the Department of Computer Science, The College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, VA 23187-8795, 757/221-3455. Completed applications should be sent to the Dean of Graduate Studies, together with a non-refundable application fee of $30. Applicants should possess a reasonable mathematical background, including calculus, linear algebra, and probability though they need not have obtained an undergraduate degree in mathematics. Applicants should have completed at least one course in a high-level programming language and are encouraged to have completed additional computer science courses such as data structures and algorithms. Applicants are required to take the Graduate Record Examination and have their scores sent to The College. Applicants for whom English is not their primary language are required to take the TOEFL examination.
Several Graduate Assistantships and Graduate Fellowships are awarded to qualified applicants on a competitive basis. The duties required of the recipient of these assistantships may include teaching calculus laboratory sections, tutoring, course grading, or research activities. Certain types of financial aid qualify students for in-state tuition fees. Applications for fall matriculation that request financial assistance should be received by March 1 of that year. Decisions for funding are made in early April. The College offers a limited number of spaces in graduate student housing. There are several off-campus apartment complexes located within easy reach of the campus.
The discipline of operations research is distinguished by its emphasis on modeling real world systems and analyzing their behavior using a variety of mathematical and computational techniques. Although the origins of operations research stem from research into military operations conducted during World War II, the scope of operations research today encompasses a variety of problems in business, engineering, and economics, as well as the social and physical sciences. Career opportunities in operations research are found in industry, in government and at academic institutions. Sample applications include airline crew scheduling, actuator placement in flexible space structures, allocation of spare parts, job shop scheduling, reliability and performance analysis.
The College of William & Mary, established by royal charter in 1693, is the second oldest university in the United States and is the site of the founding of Phi Beta Kappa. There are more than 5,000 undergraduates and 2,000 graduate students presently enrolled in The College.
Williamsburg is located 150 miles south of Washington, D.C. It is within an hour's drive of Richmond, Norfolk, and Virginia Beach. The campus is spread over approximately 1,200 acres and includes Lake Matoaka and extensive wooded areas. The Old Campus contains three restored pre-Revolutionary buildings, including the Wren Building (dating from 1695 and the oldest academic building in America). The New Campus incorporates a number of recently constructed facilities, including a new intramural athletic building.