Students must meet the minimum admissions requirements for graduate studies at UCSC as outlined on the UCSC Graduate Admissions website. Beyond these requirements, are no specific minimum academic degree or course requirements for HCI applicants.

The M.S. in Human Computer Interaction is designed to accommodate a diverse set of students, including:

• Students who have a technical background in interactive system creation but no particular design or analytics expertise (e.g., students graduating from the current UCSC B.S. in Computer Science or Computer Engineering or professionals working as programmers or hardware engineers).
• Students who have a background in analytics, but no particular design or technology expertise (e.g., students graduating from the current UCSC B.S. in Cognitive Science or professionals from technology companies working in user research).
• Students who have a background in design, but no particular analytics or technology expertise (e.g., students graduating from design schools or professionals working as technology designers).
• Students who have a background in social sciences, but minimal analytics or technical background.