'Bridging the Gap' Workshop April 25

What a College Graduate Knows and What Industry Needs

April 23, 2008 :: No. 234

All too often, industry leaders say, there is a gap between what their company needs and what the newly minted graduate knows. Such a gap can slow down industry and slow down a graduate's career. It's especially true for a graduate in software engineering because so much of business and industry depends on software.

What to do about this is the subject of the Friday, April 25, workshop on "Bridging the Gap: Knowledge Transfer and Exchange of Software Engineering Best Practices Used in the Industry and Taught by Academe" sponsored by Cal State Fullerton's College of Engineering and Computer Science.

The free, public workshop will be held in the Ontiveros Room of the Titan Student Union.

Keynote speaker Barry Boehm, TRW professor of software engineering and director of the Computer Science Department at USC, will discuss "Integrating Industrial and Academic Software Engineering through Software Project Courses," at 8:35 a.m.

Boehm spent decades in industry and government before joining academe, including as director of the Defense Department's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Research and Engineering Software and Computer Technology Office, at the Rand Corp., and as chief scientist of the Defense Systems Group at TRW.

Other speakers include: Janet Bratton of Raytheon Network Centric Services at 11:35 a.m. on "Bridging the Gap at Raytheon: What Is Lacking When a College Grad Walks Through the Door and What Do We do About It," Alex Obadovic of Open Source at 1:05 p.m. on "Automated Defect Prevention With Open Source," William Salazar of Microsoft Corp. at 1:45 p.m. on "Managing the Software Lifecycle with Microsoft Visual Studio Team System," and Ned Bader of IBM at 2:15 p.m. on "Test: Technology and Practice."

Speakers from other universities include Larry Bernstein of the Stevens Institute of Technology at 9:40 a.m. on "Innovative Topics in Various Software Engineering Programs," and Andre van der Hoek of UC Irvine at 11 a.m. on "A High-Tech Vision for Software Engineering Education and Practice: Why? How? And When?"

Speakers from CSUF's College of Engineering and Computer Science are Song "James" Choi, chair and associate professor of computer science; ECS Dean Raman Unnikrishnan; and Bin Cong, professor of computer science, at 10:25 a.m. on "Developing Software Engineering Curriculum for the Flat World: a Case Study."

In addition, Dorota Huizinga, ECS associate dean, will moderate a panel discussion on "Software Engineering Curriculum for the 21st Century" at 3 p.m.

Seating is limited. To reserve a seat, e-mail to ecsevents@fullerton.edu or call 657-278-3362. To register online and for more information, go to http://calendar.ecs.fullerton.edu/EventList.aspx.

Media Contacts:
Dorota Huizinga, College of Engineering and Computer Science, 657-278-7161 or dhuizinga@fullerton.edu
Russ L. Hudson, Public Affairs, 657-278-4007 or rhudson@fullerton.edu

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