Software Engineering Education in the Associate-Degree-Level Vocational/Technical Computer Science Program

The need for software engineers has grown with the increased use of software and computers in our society. Presently, formal education of software engineers is being conducted at the graduate degree level. There are pressures to extend this education to other academic levels; in fact, many baccalaureate degree programs today include one or more software engineering courses. Difficulties confronting software engineering education at the associate degree level include: limited educational and experience backgrounds of the students; faculty whose own education did not include software engineering; and severe time and content constraints imposed on such two-year programs. The author concludes that the two-year associate-degree-level vocational/technical computer science program should continue to focus on producing graduates with sound programming and problem solving skills. Once these graduates gain entry-level employment, they can then build upon these fundamental skills, with experience and further education, toward a software engineering career. Software engineering education in the two-year vocational/technical program, therefore, should be restricted to that which directly enhances the development of these basic skills; specific recommendations are offered for consideration