Teamwork and trust: universities, industry and the professional software engineer

Universities are faced with the challenge of providing for the future professional software engineer (PSE) the same quality and intensity of educational experience they have traditionally provided in support of the other engineering disciplines. Computing curricula in Australia have tended to emphasize the scientific and computer engineering side, the hardware side, of computing but the advent of the PSE demands new approaches to curricular design involving new topics and a product-based, rather than theory-based, emphasis. Since the graduate PSE will tend to be industrially oriented, a large practical content will be desirable in the course. This, in turn, will nor only raise educational issues within academia but also challenge long-held industrial attitudes towards universities, their students and graduates. This paper discusses some of the difficulties industry and the universities face in meeting these challenges