BS Software Engineering
The goal of the BS program in Software Engineering is the preparation of software engineers: professionals who develop software products on time, within budget and that meet customer requirements. Coursework builds on computer science and engineering fundamentals and mathematical principles to cover the design, analysis, verification, validation, implementation, deployment, and maintenance of software systems. The program focuses on practical aspects of building and deploying real software systems in a socially responsible way. The program's educational mission supports the faculty in research and professional development that keeps them current in their field and in touch with current industry practices and trends.

The hallmark of the program provides the students with an educational experience that builds on traditional computer science and engineering, but distinguishing itself in the following ways:

• courses emphasize the team approach to building software and provide leadership opportunities for every student.
• courses place an emphasis on software processes and lifecycles.
• courses include significant learning in engineering and line management areas such as project planning, resource allocation, quality assurance, testing, metrics, maintenance, configuration management and personnel management.
• a degree that has a strong emphasis on mathematics and use of engineering methods in software design
• The software engineering curriculum culminates in a year-long capstone sequence where the students work in teams to build a large software system. Students are strongly encouraged to complete a co-operative education experience prior to enrollment in these courses, in order to gain some direct, industrial experience before embarking upon their own project.

Freshmen should choose their major when they apply for admission. The software engineering program is designed to be flexible for those students who might want to refocus their efforts after beginning in another program. To that end, lower division Software Engineering is quite similar to the Computer Science and Computer Engineering programs.

The software industry increasingly requires those with a suitable engineering background for their cutting edge projects. Graduates with a BS in Software Engineering can expect to find significant opportunities in software development, management, and marketing.

The program is offered jointly by the Computer Engineering and Computer Science departments. A wide variety of computing equipment is available. Courses are usually conducted using the specialized equipment at the departments, with a variety of sophisticated workstations and state-of-the-art software engineering tools.