Software engineering education: a survey

Introductio n During the years since the ter m "software engineering" was firs t introduced by a 1968 NATO Scienc e Committee study group [1], much work ha s gone into defining the structure an d content of educational programs i n software engineering. As a result, ther e are now at least two schools in the U .S. that offer degree programs in softwar e engineering. In order to assess th e impact of software engineering educatio n on a local level, in late 1982 a surve y was made of the California colleges in Lo s Angeles and Orange Counties [2] , Information concerning course work relate d to software engineering was obtained fro m college catalogs and interviews wit h faculty members. Although none of the schools surveye d offered a complete program in softwar e engineering, it was found that the large r schools were able to provide a goo d introduction to the field by offering tw o or three courses in software engineering , some of them involving softwar e development projects. The other schools , however, had little or no offerings i n this area. Among the factors that hav e inhibited the growth of educationa l programs in software engineering, two i n particular were noted. One is th e difficulty of obtaining full—tim e instructors knowledgeable in softwar e engineering, and the other is th e inability of software engineering to gai n recognition among the general academi c community as an important field in its ow n right. In this paper we will report th e primary findings of the survey .