A new software engineering programme - structure and initial experiences

Software plays an increasingly important role in new products of different kinds. Therefore, the need for engineers developing software is continuously increasing. However computer science education programmes are not enough to fulfil the industrial needs. Software engineering programmes are required with a holistic approach to the software life-cycle and its economics, as well as education in monitoring and managing the software process. At Lund University, Sweden, a new Bachelors software engineering programme was launched 1998. In this paper, the education programme's principles and structures are presented, as well as experiences from the first year. Software processes and methods play an important part in the education programme. It is concluded that the basic principles do function as expected, although the programme must be changed in the direction of requiring more programming skills before the introduction of systematic software processes.