Empirical Studies of Software Engineering Expertise

« Shopping Cart | Main | “Communication Problems in Requirements Engineering: A Field Study” »

May 8, 2005

"Is Software Engineering Training Enough for Software Engineers?"

The author of this article feels that the current curricula for software engineering is insufficient and inadequate when it comes to training students for “real world” software engineering projects. He argues that software engineering education should include the understanding and using classical engineering which is comprised of other engineering disciples such as mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and different aspects of civil engineering. He proposes to update the current curriculum with adding elements such as analysis and modeling of non-software system related problems. As a case study, a software engineering course was analyzed to determine the importance of “system thinking”. The project purpose was to investigate the student’s ability to solve unfamiliar problems which are found in the profession but somewhat outside of the software engineering domain. They were given two requirements that hold emphasis in “real world” software engineering: modifiability and visualizing the mathematical model. The students understood that the software should be easy to modify but it was hard for them to incorporate this within their requirements and design. They were also able to derive a model for the project(some which did not work out at all) but had trouble with its documentation and analysis. Results determined that the students were not well prepared for engineering projects outside of the software spectrum. Even the teachers and their assistance were questioned on their knowledge of preparing students for what they will face in the future.

Posted by Jonathan at May 8, 2005 7:13 PM

Comments

Post a comment