A pilot senior CS capstone sequence for CS majors and nonmajors

The United States Military Academy requires each cadet to take a five course engineering sequence. There are seven sequences embedded in engineering programs. Engineering majors take the sequence embedded in their program. All cadets must take a sequence. Nonengineering majors such as History majors may take the Systems Engineering sequence and Spanish majors may take the Computer Science sequence. Within the Computer Science program the sequence courses are taken simultaneously by majors and nonmajors. Designing a senior-level capstone course began in 1996. The course was conducted in Fall 1998. Computer Information Systems Design had 120 students; 28 of which were CS Majors and 92 were enrolled as sequence students. Several indicators were tracked against the assumptions used for course design. As expected, the CS majors tended to have a higher course-end grade average than the sequencers. On individual events majors attained higher averages by spending approximately one half the time spent by sequencers. When working as groups, which were comprised of both sequencers and majors, the grades were equivalent but the majors put twice the effort into the requirement. Through the semester several nonquantitative indicators reflected a greater difference in student-level expectations for the course than anticipated. One unexpected result was that both types of student felt that the course was unfair with respect to their type. With these quantitative and subjective results, we can map changes onto the course which ensure a valid capstone software engineering experience for both majors and nonmajors.