Bachelor’s – CLASIC Accelerated Master’s Program

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

The Linguistics Department and the Computational Linguistics, Analytics, Search and Informatics MS Program offer a Bachelor's – Accelerated Master's degree program for students with strong abilities and motivations who are interested in computational linguistics. A student in this program begins graduate coursework as part of the BA and continues in the CLASIC Program after receiving the BA to complete the MS within three semesters.
 

Before You Apply

You should consult with both your Linguistics undergraduate advisor and the CLASIC graduate advisor when you are considering applying to this program. Planning should generally begin while selecting the courses for the fall term of your sophomore year, and you should apply to the BAM during your junior year. Before your application to the BAM program is approved, you 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 as an elective one of the following courses in Computer Science:
  • 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, you must have completed by or be enrolled in a 5000-level course, called the qualifying course, in the semester of your junior year in which you apply to the BAM program. These courses are as follows:

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

Your admission to the BAM program will not be decided until midterm or final grades for one of these graduate-level courses have been made available to the admissions committee. We will occasionally consider requests to use a different LING MA course as the qualifying course.
 

Undergraduates cannot register for graduate courses directly. If you want to take one before you are accepted into the BAM, contact Kris Stenzel at clasic_contact@colorado.edu, who will work with the appropriate program (CS or LING) to register you for that course.

Application Deadlines

Fall applications: before October 25.

Spring applications: before Spring Break.

Applying

By the application deadline noted above, you must complete the BAM “intent application” on the Graduate School website. You must also submit:

Two letters of recommendation. Letters should be requested from: 

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

Fill in the waiver part of the letter of recommendation request form and send it to clasic_contact@colorado.edu along with the names and email addresses of the two instructors who have agreed to be your recommenders. CLASIC will contact them directly to request their recommendations. Please do this at least two weeks in advance of the Spring or Fall application deadlines so that we have time to contact them to complete your materials.

A current unofficial transcript, sent to clasic_contact@colorado.edu.

A short personal statement with any information relevant for the admissions committee (this is not required, it is only for special circumstances that require clarification).

If your application to the BAM program is not approved or if you decide to withdraw from the program, any graduate courses that you have 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.

Course of Study

To complete the BAM program, you will meet the requirements for the BA + the requirements for the MS. However, 6 of your graduate credits may be double counted for both degrees.
 
Prior to receiving your BA, you will take:

• Fifteen undergraduate course credits. These may be from elective courses or required courses within the major. For example, if you have already taken LING 2000, LING 3100 and LING 4420 prior to entering the BAM, these can all be counted toward the 15 undergraduate credits needed.
• Five hours of upper-division language, as required for the BA (or one additional LING elective, if your non-English language proficiency is already above the third-year college level).
• Twelve graduate course credits. These will include credits from your qualifying course plus three others, which may be either required or elective courses for the MS. 

Note that only 12 graduate credits from before you receive the BA may be counted toward the MS, and only 6 credits may be double counted for both degrees.
After completing the requirements for the BA, you will apply to graduate with the BA degree and submit a master’s continuation form.
After receiving your BA, you will take:

• The remaining required and elective courses ordinarily needed for the MS, including the Capstone course, for a total of 32 graduate hours.

Once you are accepted to the BAM program, you must consult initially with the CLASIC Graduate Advisor in choosing courses. You are encouraged to continue working with your undergraduate advisor in Linguistics as well.

Your undergraduate advisor will help you plan your courses to make sure that you fulfill all the BA requirements by the end of your fourth year, so that you can receive your Bachelor’s degree. Your undergraduate and CLASIC advisors can also help you strategize to make best use of the overlap allowed between the two degrees.
 

Graduate Courses Required for the MS

Required Courses and Credits

Core Linguistics Courses - 2 of these 3 + one other advisor approved LING course (9 credits)

LING 5420 Morphology and Syntax (Required as of Fall 2026) (alt: LING 6450)

1 of the following 2 + one other advisor approved LING course

LING 5030 Linguistics Phonetics
LING 5430 Semantics and Pragmatics
Any advisor-approved LING course; LING 5000-, LING 6000- or LING 7000-level

Core Computer Science Courses - 2 courses (6 credits) 

Choose from graduate breadth courses offered in 3 different breadth bins. One course from Bin 3 is required; another course can be from any Bin, advisor approved. The list of courses in the Breadth bins is updated every two years.
CSCI/LING 5832, Natural Language Processing, is a Core CLASIC course from Bin 2, as noted below.  

Bin 1 
Recommendations:
CSCI 5454 Design and Analysis of Algorithms (alt: CSCI 5444, or CSCI 5714)
CSCI 5606 Principles of Numerical Computation (alt: CSCI 5646)

Bin 3 (choose one)
Recommendations:
CSCI 5253 Datacenter Scale Computing – Methods, Systems and Techniques
CSCI 5448 Object-Oriented Analysis and Design
CSCI 5535 Fundamental Concepts of Programming Languages

Core CLASIC Courses – 5 total; 3 required & 2 electives (15 credits)

Required for all students:
CSCI/LING 5832 Natural Language Processing (from CS Bin 2)
Choose two:
CSCI/LING 7565 Computational Phonology and Morphology
CSCI/LING 7575 Computational Lexical Semantics
CSCI/LING 7585 Computational Models of Discourse
CSCI/LING 7000 Certain Topics courses will be approved for this requirement on a case-by-case basis.

Electives - choose two of the following

Recommendations:
CSCI 5417 Information Retrieval Systems
CSCI 5817 Database systems
CSCI 5352 Network Analysis and Modeling
CSCI 5502 Data Mining
CSCI 5622 Machine Learning
CSCI 5839 User-Centered Design & Development 1
CSCI 5922 Neural Networks and Deep Learning
CSCI 6622 Advanced Machine Learning
CSCI 7000 Current Topics in Computer Science (Inference, Models & Simulation for Complex Systems)
CSCI 7222 Topics in Nonsymbolic Artificial Intelligence (Probabilistic Models of Human & Machine Intelligence)
CSCI 7222 Topics in Nonsymbolic Artificial Intelligence (Representation Learning for Language)
LING 5200 Introduction to Computational Corpus Linguistics
LING 5800 Open Topics in Linguistics (Machine Learning and Linguistics)
LING 6300/3800 Topics in Language Use (Formal Models of Linguistics)
LING 6520 Topics in Comparative Linguistics (Computational Grammars)
PHIL 5440 Topics in Logic
PHIL 5460 Modal Logic
Any other CSCI or LING course at the 5000-, 6000- or 7000-level
Any Core course listed above (not already taken)

CLASIC Capstone Course - 1 course (2 credits)

LING/CSCI 5140 Capstone Project