I currently have a BS and MS in Industrial Engineering with a focus in Human Factors research. I recently graduated from my MS and have been working for a defense research group doing cockpit interface design for a little over a year now, but am looking to switch gears.. I would like to move away from gov’t research and more into the tech world. And I think an HCI MS degree might be a good step to help diversify my HF research background with more programming/computer science skills.
I find HCI to be an incredibly interesting and increasingly useful field as it seems to be a mesh of human factors engineering, computer science, cognitive science, and industrial design. However, I am afraid of the prerequisite programming skills that are needed to (1) get into and (2) succeed in a HCI graduate program. When I browsed through some HCI programs online it seemed like most of the students come from CS backgrounds.
I am not programming illiterate by any means, but I don’t have an immense amount of experience with it. I have dabbled in C/C++ (have taken a few courses and written a small amount of C++ in my old lab). I am fairly proficient in Matlab (coding, GUI design, and Simulink modeling). And I have also TA-ed a course in information systems (went through html/php and a little sql). But overall I do not have a lot of applied programming experience — especially graphics programming (OpenGL, etc).

So I am wondering if there are any HCI graduate students or field experts out there who can fill me in a little about their experiences with HCI graduate programs? Do you think its necessary to have a strong CS background to succeed, or can you pick it up along the way?

Thanks in advance!