Real-World Software Projects as Tools for the Improvement of Student Motivation and University-Industry Collaboration

Software engineering education has to deal with different challenges nowadays in Hungary. While the number of job offers in this field is continuously increasing the students' interest in programming shows a declining trend. The recognition of the problem led to several initiatives trying to address the existing lack of software engineers and student motivation in programming. This paper reports some of our successful attempts to reverse the unfavorable process. While some short-scale solutions like the usage of Lego mobile robots or team-based laboratory class assignments provided only short term lasting improvements the break-through was achieved by the help of a strong University-Industry collaboration. Real-world software projects as team-work assignments brought benefits for the students as well as for the university and the involved companies. As a large-scale modification of the study program towards the enhancement of the industry readiness of our graduates the key features of the cooperative education are outlined at the end of the paper as well.