MCS Colloquium

CSU HAYWARD

DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS AND

COMPUTER SCIENCE

COLLOQUIUM

Friday, May 9, 2003; Noon-1:00pm Sc N321

Speaker: Sigurd Meldal, Professor & Chair
Computer Engineering Department
San Jose State University

Creating Software Engineers, Sure.
But in Four Years?

The challenge as the Computer Engineering Department at San José State is setting out to create an undergraduate software engineering program is to package into the "four pound" capacity of an undergraduate degree the "ten pounds" of science, computer science and engineering, and then to add preparation for the technical management roles one would expect would be thrust upon good software engineering graduates soon after their degree completion.

The hallmark of the program proposal is "hands-on" experience. The curriculum is founded on traditional computer science and engineering, but distinguishes itself by:

Emphasizing the team approach to building software and providing leadership opportunities for every student.
Focusing on software processes and lifecycles.
Including significant learning in engineering and management areas such as project planning, resource allocation, quality assurance, testing, metrics, maintenance, configuration management and personnel management.
Placing a stronger emphasis on mathematics and the use of engineering methods in software design.

The solution to the packaging challenge is to provide the students with a helix of tightly interlocking software engineering courses: sophomores participate with seniors in a yearlong, team-based project course sequence that constructs significant software systems for industrial clients. As seniors, after a junior year emphasizing specific process, technology and science topics and skills, they return to this sequence, but this time as technical managers: they are assigned leadership responsibilities for project deliverables, and they have budget and personnel responsibilities.

The presentation will discuss the resolution of the curricular packaging challenge, focusing on how the students acquire industrial management experience, and relate the results of a one-year trial period.

Please join us beforehand for Pizza!!!!