[comp.software-eng] Beyond CASE courses

UH2@PSUVM.BITNET (Lee Sailer) (03/30/88)

As we now see, progressive colleges everywhere ARE offering various
types of Software Engineering courses.

What's really needed is a software engineering MAJOR.  This would
mirror the history of math and applied math, literature and writing,
musicology and performance, and so on.

lee

warren@psu-cs.UUCP (Warren Harrison) (04/02/88)

> As we now see, progressive colleges everywhere ARE offering various
> types of Software Engineering courses.
> 
> What's really needed is a software engineering MAJOR.  This would
> mirror the history of math and applied math, literature and writing,
> musicology and performance, and so on.
> 
> lee

As far as I know only two places have attempted such a puppy so far.  One is
the great late Wang Institute, and the other is The University of Seattle
under Ev Mills (which is still going strong). Both programs were/are graduate
programs - Master of Software Engineering - and both required a significant
professional background as a prerequisite for admission. This probably
suggests that the developers of these programs felt that until a student
had been exposed to a real software development enviornment, they would
not be able to fully appreciate the course content (this is common among
many big-name MBA mills - oops, I mean schools, as well).  Regardless of
what you do at the undergraduate level, 10,000 line systems, two semester
courses, etc., this will probably remain so.

This is my opinion because I have constantly observed that students work
differently than professionals (even in my group project courses).  There
are perhaps several reasons for this, but here are a few:

(1)  At any given point in time, the students will have three of four
     other classes which require significant effort.  Thus, they cannot
     consistently devote their mental energies to a software project.
     Granted, professionals typically have to split their time over several
     activities, but they are seldom so radically different. For example,
     at any given time, one of my students might be taking my advanced
     file and data structures with COBOL (yes --- really!) course, and
     working on a 3K LOC project, taking a course in marketing research
     and also working on a significant project, writing a term paper for
     their theology course, and doing library research for their "History
     of the 1880's" course.  All the while they are trying to go through
     the rites of yound adulthood with as much grace as possible.

(2)  They realize that the project is a "fake".  That is, no one will ever
     use it.  Thus, no matter how hard they work, at the end of the semester
     (or the end of the second semester), the project for all intents and
     purposes will be discarded.  Even if they are lucky enough to get a
     "real" project, the user didn't pay anything for it, and will probably
     treat it that way (I think it was Simon that said people don't tend to
     take things seriously unless they have to pay for it).  How would you
     professionals feel if you were bust coding software that you knew would
     never be used UP FRONT?

(3)  A grade, while a form of renumeration, isn't anywhere close to a
     paycheck.  If I tell you you're going to get a C instead of a B
     becuase your user interface isn't any good, you still might not
     forgo your date with Mary Sue (or John Boy or whatever) that you
     have been planning for a month.  On the other hand, if you risk not
     getting a raise, or loosing the paycheck altogether, you might look
     at things a litle differently.

This all results in things being done quite a bit differently in the class
than in the real world.  I don't think that we will ever be able to do any-
thing to alleviate the problems, especially with classes of 30 or more
students.  I would love to hear how others have addressed these problems
(note I am generalizing, if you are a student and are reading netnews
by your own volition, you probably don't have these problems anyway, because
you're learning by choice, not force).

Warren Harrison
The University of Portland
Portland, OR 97203