Hi! Yiyoung here. If you don’t know me—I’m a class of 2029, IS major, CS minor (not declared yet but it’ll happen).
IS is a very… flexible major, and you can see that via the fact that there are practically no major requisites. You only need to take 16 classes, 2 of which are 1 unit seminars, for the major. Of course, you do need to do a concentration/minor/additional major as well as your Dietrich gen eds to graduate, but we won’t focus on those here.
As of July 2026, when I am writing this, these are the requirements for IS:
Technical Core
A mathematics course, either:
- 21120 Differential and Integral Calculus (yes, your AP credit works for this)
- 21127 Concepts of Mathematics
- 21112 Integral Calculus
- 21240 Matrix Algebra with Application
- 80210 Logic and Proofs
This requirement shouldn’t be too hard to fulfill, if you are coming in with AP calculus credit or planning on taking 21127 for CS/other purposes. If you don’t really want to do either of those, 80210 is a much more introductory course that is essentially concepts-lite, going over many similar topics (albeit simpler) without being as difficult.
Your computer science requirement:
- 15110 (can get this waived)
- 15112 or 02120
- 15121 or 15122
I’m sure there is, or will be, a guide about which CS course to start off with, but in short, 15112 if you have not done much programming, 15122 if you are comfortable writing some code, and 15121 if you don’t want to do 15122/it is too difficult (15122 is certainly a challenging course!).
Only 122 fulfills the prerequisites for future CS classes! While 121 is great if you don’t plan on taking more CS, don’t take 121 simply because you were waitlisted on 122.
Information Systems Core
67100 First year Colloquium
1 unit course, to take freshman fall (I will have a timeline somewhere down the page, don’t worry :D )
Covers basics of your IS journey and what resources CMU has for you to succeed.
67200 Research Colloquium
1 unit course, to take sophomore fall
Talks about how to get involved in research at CMU and what research your IS professors are doing.
67250 Information Systems Milieux
9 units, to take freshman spring
Your first “real” IS course (yay)! Will give you a broad sweep of parts of IS, i.e. people, process and technology.
67262 Database Design and Development
9 units, to take sophomore fall
Expands upon your experience of databases from milieux, and teaches relational databases, database design, and SQL. I think it does go over a bit of nonrelational DB as well.
67272 Application Design and Development
12 units, to take sophomore spring
Apply what you learned in 262, and your intro CS class, and build a web app!
05391 Designing Human Centered Software
12 units, I think people take this course all over their IS career. Ask about profs before you sign up, I have heard there is some variance…
17313 Foundations of SWE
12 units, to take… generally junior fall, but some do take it senior fall, and some do take it sophomore fall.
Learn to work in a team to develop software. Will add more as I learn more about this course.
67373 Consulting Project
12 units, to take junior spring
Work with your IS peers and a professor to do a real consulting project with some group in Pittsburgh!
95422 Managing Digital Transformation
9 units, to take senior year (I think fall?)
Fall is taught by Prof. Smith, and I don’t know much about him but I sure do love listening to him speak lol, which he did in colloquium for a class.
The world is ever-changing, both changing technology and being changed by it, so how do we deal with these tides?
Your breadth:
Many courses count for each of these sections, but I’ll note the ones I’ve noticed to have some additional benefits, beyond the fact you may find them interesting.
Professional Communications
Besides these three many of the other courses also count for concentrations, minor electives, etc. Check out the courses you find interesting on Stellic.
70350 Acting for Business
This course counts for The Arts gen ed requirement.
88230 Human Intelligence and Human Stupidity (HIHS)
This course counts for the Social Sciences gen ed requirement.
36315 Statistical Graphs and Visualization
This course also counts for your Quantitative Analysis requirement, but I’m not sure if you can double count it? Worth asking your advisor, and let me know after :D
Quantitative Analysis and Research Methods
Many of these courses probably also count for a Data Analytics Concentration.
88275 Bubbles: Data Science for Human Minds
This course counts for the Scientific Inquiry gen ed requirement.
36202 Methods for Statistics & Data Science
I have heard that this course is just easy lol
Innovation and Entrepreneurship
As of now there are only 5 courses in this category and none of them count for other requirements AFAIK.
Timeline
Freshman fall: 67100 (colloquium)
Freshman spring: 67250 (milieux)
Sophomore fall: 67200 (research colloquium) and 67262 (databases)
Sophomore spring: 67272 (app)
Junior fall: nothing
Junior spring: 67373 (consulting project)
Senior fall: 95422 (digital transformation)
Senior spring: nothing
Other courses, these have no general time:
05391 - people take all over
17313 - people tend to take junior or senior fall
your 3 breadth requirements - whenever
For your technical core:
need to have 112 done by soph fall (for 262)
need to have 121/122 done by soph spring (for 272)
and you also need an additional major/minor or concentration
That’s all you need to graduate besides your gen eds