A Student-Enacted Simulation Approach
to Software Engineering Education
2003 Award Winner
M. Brian Blake, The MITRE Corporation
ABSTRACT
In some cases, real-world application of software engineering concepts
does not effectively map with current undergraduate curriculums. Typically,
a student's first "hands-on" experience working on large-scale
software development projects is via an intern position or his/her first
full-time position. However, prior exposure to the corporate project
environment would greatly improve a student's performance in industry.
In order to develop students for successful careers in software engineering,
specifically for software development, they must be immersed not only
in the software development lifecycle and paradigms, but also in the
workings of large project teams. Currently, most undergraduate software
engineering courses are taught by presenting the concepts and methodologies
and assigning fragmented three-to-four person group projects. In the
Department of Computer Science, Georgetown University, Washington, DC,
a two-course approach to undergraduate software engineering education
has been developed that incorporates the practical application of coursework
in a large team setting. The first course presents a firm software design
basis, while the second course demonstrates corporate-level software
engineering concepts with a semester-long software development simulation
where the entire class is the development team. This paper presents
the experiences from offering this software engineering simulation approach.
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Publication
Reprinted from IEEE Transactions on Education, Vol. 46, No.
1, pp. 124-133, Copyright © 2004 IEEE. This material is posted
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