Providing “real-world” software engineering experience in an academic setting

At Milwaukee School of Engineering, the Software Development Laboratory was created with a vision of providing "real-life" software development experience to software engineering student teams. It provides students an opportunity to unite theory and practice while working on large scale ongoing projects in the context of a standardized development process. This paper provides details on how the lab is currently structured, its pedagogical philosophy, its challenges, its rewards and how it has evolved since its inception.