About Software Architecture & Design (msc) in Cork Institute of Technology

This programme is designed for software professionals, architects, and senior system design engineers. Managers of architecture teams will also benefit from this programme. The programme aims to form part of the evolutionary path that a software developer takes to become a software architect, allowing each student to advance their technical career path. Students will learn about the role of a software architect in creating an extensible and maintainable software solution by applying abstract knowledge and patterns to software architecture, and design. The traditional role of a software architect will also be critically assessed in the face of agile development methodologies and the adoption of tools, and practices that avoid or decouple up front systems or architectural design. The programme is taught by industry and academic experts who are either practicing software architects, senior technical architects or research active academics in the field.

The aim of the Programme is to develop students’ knowledge and skills in Software Architecture & Design, Software Development Processes, Analysis and Design of Algorithms, Programming Language Design, Decision Analytics, Software Vulnerabilities, Microservices, and Data Analytics. Students will develop skills in analysing requirements and designing appropriate software solutions; designing and creating complex software systems to solve real-world problems, evaluating and using advanced software environments, design methods and programming languages, and evaluating and responding to recent trends in interoperability and software development. In addition to the taught modules, students will complete a research project that can be aligned to their own specific research interests.

Academic qualification equivalents

• Bachelor's degree (Honours) holders with a minimal overall first division result
• First Class BSc Science/Arts/Commerce three year degree (for MA Global Business Practice/MSc International Business course)

English language requirements (one of the below):

• IELTS 6.5 overall (6.0 for Business programmes)
• IELTS 5.5 in all four components (listening, reading, speaking and writing)
• PTE 60 (63 for integrated programmes)
• PTE 55 in all four components (listening, reading, speaking and writing)