Positive transitions from the classroom to the cubicle: Creating strategies for augmenting professional development in the software engineering curriculum

Engineering ethics often receives attention in separate courses or modules, however other critical elements of professionalism are not directly addressed in a curriculum. Graduates coming to industry frequently lack proficiency in vital skills such as being adept in appropriate interpersonal communications, quickly adapting to industry protocols, and effectively acclimating to corporate hierarchy, culture and accountability. Many programs assume that professionalism is indirectly socialized through faculty modeling and classroom management. Such an assumption does not serve our students well, or the SE industry that hires them and then must put a tremendous effort into new employee orientation to create a productive work environment. This highly interactive tutorial provides practical resources for those who seek to introduce professionalism education into the SE curriculum but cannot create whole new courses devoted to the subject. Participants who will come away with concrete plans to assess, create, and integrate professional development opportunities into their academic Software Engineering curricula or industry training programs. This tutorial is a fertile opportunity for SE educators, advisors, administrators and representatives from SE undergraduate professional societies who want to respond to a vital concern for many campuses.