Our Master of Science in Software Engineering is one of the first Software Engineering programs established in the United States. We have been awarding this degree for over 20 years. UHCL was one of the first universities in the country to offer a Master’s degree in Software Engineering, and one of the first to offer the degree completely online. The online degree has been available for the last five years. This has been especially attractive to students with full-time jobs, those who travel, and those who live outside a reasonable commuting distance from campus. Some students choose to pursue the degree completely online and others combine online and face to face classes to complete the program.
UHCL’s Software Engineering program covers all major areas of the software development life cycle, including requirements engineering, system specification, architecture and detailed design, testing, quality measurement, software process design, and project management. There are also courses in reuse and reengineering, design patterns, service oriented architectures (SOA), aspect oriented software development, and software safety.
Our program will prepare a student for jobs that require complex software systems to be specified, designed, built, deployed, tested and maintained. “Increasingly, the skilled personnel called on to solve these challenges are not coming from the computer science or computer engineering disciplines but from software engineering, the newest of the computing professions.” [Computer World, Feb, 2010 issue].
As pointed out in Computer World, February 2010 issue, “The field of software engineering was created in the last decade specifically to meet market demand for these skills. Those trained in the profession can expect to fill very rewarding roles in government as well as private industry. People trained in these skills have a very long career path,” [Computer World, Feb, 2010 issue]
What is Software Engineering?
Software engineering is loosely defined as the application of engineering concepts, techniques, and methods to the development of software systems. It is a process that is very design driven. It is distinct from the field of computer science. Computer Science is very code driven and it draws on a strong theoretical foundation in mathematics, statistics, and computing to develop new computing algorithms. And it is distinct from computer engineering, which in general covers the design and construction of computers and computer-based systems.
The field of software engineering is also distinct for the scale of the systems it addresses. In software engineering there is a special emphasis on working on very large software projects, such as large enterprise or government projects that might require a team of 50 people to write the code.
Because the field of software engineering is concerned with large-scale systems it is a team-oriented discipline. Professionals need to know how teams work and they must have the organizational, technical, process, and people skills needed to be productive in a team environment. They need the ability to link software programs together and the know-how to measure the effectiveness of a team’s performance and the finished product.
Software engineers thus need a broad set of skills. They must be able to specify and design software design at the architecture level and the subsystem level and be able to design at the code level, using knowledge from the basics of computer science.
Possible Careers
Software engineers can pursue various career paths depending on their personal interests and ambitions. UHCL’s Software Engineering MS program produces highly qualified alumni that go on to pursue high-paid careers as systems engineer, systems analyst, software architect, system designer, software quality engineers, requirements engineers, software project managers, and software process designers. A graduate might pursue a career with a particular focus such as finance, or image processing, or lead project manager.
UHCL is located in the heart of the chemical, financial, and oil and gas industry, and the aerospace industry. Our graduates currently work for some of the nation’s leading companies such as Stewart title, Schlumberger, the Texas Medical Center, NASA, Boeing, United Space Alliance, Jacobs Engineering and Area School Districts. Software engineers can expect to command high salaries according to the National Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Job Outlook
Job Outlook for Software Engineers according to Money Magazine, Salary. Com, and the US Dept of Labor
Money Magazine and Salary.com reported in 2008 and 2009 that Software Engineering will be the most sought after job through the next decade, and one of the most highly paid. The US Dept. of National Bureau of Labor Statistics states that software engineers can expect to command high salaries and it documents these job markets needs and trends on its website. It states that “employment of computer software engineers is expected to increase by 32 percent from 2008-2018, which is much faster than the average for all occupations”. “In addition, this occupation will see a large number of new jobs, with more than 295,000 created between 2008 and 2018. Implementing, safeguarding, and updating computer systems and resolving problems will fuel the demand for growing numbers of systems software engineers”. [National Bureau of Labor Statistics]
The National Bureau of Labor Statistics also points out that computer programmer jobs are expected to decline by 3% from 2008 to 2018 due to outsourcing of these jobs to cheap offshore labor. But notes that “Jobs in software engineering are less prone to being off-shored than are jobs in computer programming, however, because software engineering requires innovation and intense research and development.” In addition, the February issue of Computer World states that “Individuals must understand that engineering a software system is not equivalent to writing code. It may be a part of it but it is not the whole thing. Thus, the process of conceptualizing the problem and developing the design is still not exportable. People must understand that.” Computer World (15 February, 2010)
UHCL Software Engineering Program Requirements
The program is 36 hours in length. You will complete 21 hours of core courses and 12 hours of electives, along with a capstone project worth 3 hours. If you choose to replace the capstone project with a thesis, you will complete 9 hours of electives and a thesis worth 6 hours. Starting in Fall 2010, students have the option to take their elective hours in one of three sub-areas, including Information Management, Software Gaming, and Software Project Management.
Entrance requirements are: Undergraduate Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering or related field, GPA 3.0, GRE Score of 1,000 (Verbal + Quantitative) We offer classes in Spring, Fall, and Summer. The time to graduation is typically 2 years.
UHCL Software Engineering Program Curriculum
As a student in the SWEN program, you will have learn the fundamental software engineering areas such as Requirements Engineering, Software Architecture, Testing, Verification, & Validation, Risk Management, Software Project Management, Software Construction and Process. Each of these important topics is covered by a dedicated course in the curriculum.) For a complete list of courses you can view our online course catalog at www.uhcl.edu/catalog. To see the curriculum requirements and a list of the Faculty and all other information about the SWEN program see the SWEN program website at: www.uhcl.edu/softwareengineering.) Our curriculum centers around 7 core course that provide students with the necessary skills to become a successful Software Engineering. These Core courses are:
Requirements Engineering - how to capture and document all the requirements for what a system is to do.
Software Construction - how to design and construct a software system
Software Architecture - how to specify the overall Architecture Design of a System.
Software Engineering Life Cycle - Covers all phases of the Software Life Cycle.
Software Engineering Processes – Covers the waterfall model in detail , spiral model and the Unified Software Development Process model, as well as process creation and improvement.
Reuse and Reengineering – techniques, methods, tradeoffs and analysis of the reuse of software.
Software Design Patterns – Study of current software design patterns.
Each student can also choose four electives. Some of these electives are: Risk Management, Testing, Software Project Management, Aspect Oriented Development, And Service Oriented Architecture.
New Gaming Sub-plan
We also are implementing a new Sub-plan in Software Gaming which will allow a student to take four courses in Gaming if they are interested in pursuing a career in the development of virtual reality simulations and gaming applications
I would like to personally invite you to apply to our program. We would welcome having you as a student. Candidates earn a Master of Science in Software Engineering by participating in our online distance-learning program or attending traditional classes. Feel free to contact me on the phone to speak to me directly at 281-283-3867. If you have questions about how to apply or costs or other non-curriculum related questions you may contact our advisors at 281-283-3713 or email advising@sce.uhcl.edu, or se@uhcl.edu
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