Teaching Software Architecture to Undergraduate Students: An Experience Report

Software architecture lies at the heart of system thinking skills for software. Teaching software architecture requires contending with the problem of how to make the learning realistic -- most systems which students can learn quickly are too simple for them to express architectural issues. We address here the ten years' history of teaching an undergraduate software architecture course, as a part of a bachelor's program in software engineering. Included are descriptions of what we perceive the realistic goals to be, of teaching software architecture at this level. We go on to analyze the successes and issues of various approaches we have taken over the years. We finish with recommendations for others who teach this same subject, either as a standalone undergraduate course or integrated into a software engineering course.