Repackaging the fundamentals in graduate professional studies: thriving in a corporate setting
Repackaging the fundamentals in graduate professional studies: thriving in a corporate setting
- Author(s): C.J. Neill
- DOI: 10.1049/ic:20010042
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- Author(s): C.J. Neill Source: IEE International Symposium Engineering Education: Innovations in Teaching, Learning and Assessment, 2001 page ()
- Conference: IEE International Symposium Engineering Education: Innovations in Teaching, Learning and Assessment
This paper discusses the need to adopt marketing-friendly curricula and syllabi in graduate engineering education based upon the experience of developing a new Masters of Software Engineering degree in the USA. The competition for good graduate students is extremely fierce and has forced the faculty to construct degree programs that not only meet the academic expectations of graduate education, but align closely with the interests of the local corporations and the desires of a forward-thinking, career-minded student body. This has led to the near-extinction of several fundamental subject areas including numerical methods, switching and sequential machine theory, programming language concepts and compiler design favoring, instead, areas such as e-commerce, web-based IT, visual programming and GUI design. While this reflects the flavor of the day, it risks neglecting the necessary basics of a graduate engineering education unless a concerted effort is made to repackage those fundamentals as parts of the glamorous-sounding offerings. This paper describes how this has been achieved at Penn State Great Valley. Introduction The Penn State Great Valley, School of Graduate Professional Studies is a satellite campus of The Pennsylvania State University situated in the Greater Philadelphia high-tech region known as the “Silicon Valley of the East Coast”. It was the first of its kind in that it was intentionally positioned in the heart of the corporate center, providing easy access for the 10,000 plus graduate workforce, with the mission of providing high-quality graduate degrees in the professional disciplines desired by the surrounding corporations and potential students. What was a high-risk experiment has turned into a resounding success and has become the model for many universities and colleges. Indeed, as graduate enrollment continues to decline throughout the U.S, Penn State Great Valley has maintained steady growth. (5 pages)
Inspec keywords: engineering education; educational courses; computer science education; software engineering; professional aspects
Subjects: Education and training; Education and training; Software engineering techniques; Computing education and training
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