I have an undergraduate degree that's completely unrelated to CS and I want to go back to school one day for a master's in CS. Is research experience also necessary for a master's at a good school (like UCs)? Or will industry experience and recommendations for being a good student in CS classes be sufficient? It just seems pretty hard to get research experience without having been a CS major in undergrad. If anyone has any tips on how to approach getting CS research experience post-graduation as an unrelated major I'm all ears!

For the record I've always been a hobbyist programmer and have about 2 years of undergrad CS courses that I took for fun.

There's so much more to a CS major than just programming. You should check out the grad program's curriculum to make sure you're doing it for the right reason. Anyway, research experience is not required for most master programs. Industry experience and recommendations from work would work.

I know someone who did a MS CS at Stanford and was an English major as an undergrad (albeit at Harvard). She only took 3-4 CS classes before grad school.

I came across this when I was applying to programs. I thought it was pretty useful, especially the section on recommendation letters. It helped me decide what professors to ask for recommendations and how to do it.

I also liked the "So long, and thanks for the Ph.D.!" article: http://www.cs.unc.edu/~azuma/hitch4.html

I wrote a similar article a few years back when I was still in grad school: http://www.ics.uci.edu/~jcarlson/gradschool.html

> You will know about your research than anyone at your school.

I think theses should also be held to a high standard of grammar.