Software Engineering Graduate Survey Responses

The students and staff at the School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering (The University of Queensland) jointly designed a survey for the first graduates of the Software Engineering Program. The survey was sent out in October 2001 with 3 of the 5 graduates responding. The anonymous responses are provided below.

Roger Keays and David Carrington

The University
			Are you currently working?

Graduate #1       Yes

Graduate #2       Yes

Graduate #3       Yes

The University
			Are you currently studying or doing research?

Graduate #1       No

Graduate #2       No

Graduate #3       No

The University
			Where are you currently based?

Graduate #1       Brisbane

Graduate #2       Brisbane

Graduate #3       Brisbane

The University
			How did you get your current position?

Graduate #1
			Self employed, I created my own company mainly providing e-commerce services to SME (Small and Medium Sized Enterprises).

Graduate #2
			I started my own company of which I am a Director.

Graduate #3
			Applied for a position in the Courier Mail; Attended Inteview.

The University
			Describe your work environment

Graduate #1
			Dynamic, challenging, team environment.

Graduate #2
			Because I am in a start-up company, my work environment is a smallish kind of office where the equipment is moderate and the people I work with are motivated and the mood is mostly relaxed because, after all, we are our own bosses with our own deadlines.

Graduate #3
			Software Development - frequent contact with Functional 'Clients' as well.

The University
			Describe your current job activities

Graduate #1
			Design, specification, programming, talking to clients.

Graduate #2
			Again, because I am a director in a small start up company, I have many roles. They include: Managing - Meeting, agendas, minutes, organising, scheduling, budgeting. Finance - Doing the books, issuing invoices, chasing up invoices, cashing cheques, doing bank transfers. Developer - Specifications, developing programs, maintaining projects. Legal - Tax returns, ASIC forms, press releases. Customer liaison - Communicating with customers.

Graduate #3
			Software Development - embracing total lifecycle - design, build, test...

The University
			Of the subjects you studied at UQ, which have been useful

Graduate #1
			The most useful are the process subjects, the requirements analysis subjects and fundamental subjects like the data structures and algorithms subject.

Graduate #2
			The most useful were the ones that focused on the software building process, such as doing specifications, building demos, building the various versions, debugging the release candidate(s), deploying the project and then maintaining the project. This skill is something you are probably unwilling to teach yourself, so I found it most useful to have it taught to me at uni. These subjects have proven most useful to me out in the field.

Graduate #3
			Team with 'real' implementation of considerable systems.

The University
			Of the subjects you studied at UQ, which have not been useful?

Graduate #1
			ADA, Calculus

Graduate #2
			Programming subjects have been less useful because in my case I have used vastly different technologies outside of uni than the ones I used when I was there. The only subjects that have been of no use at all were some of the subjects I did in first year such as thermodynamics and statics and some maths subjects.

Graduate #3
			Philosophy!

The University
			In your opinion, what areas of Software Engineering are in most demand?

Graduate #1
			Overall system design

Graduate #2
			Internet developers that can build (web) applications that are of a distributed nature. An example would be the web services that you can build with Visual Studio.NET. These technologies bring manufacturers and distributors and resellers closer together and automate much of the procurement process. This is a large cost save exercise and this area is undergoing a small boom at the moment and is known as B2B (Business 2 Business) E-Commerce. The traditional B2C (Business 2 Consumer) E-Commerce area is quietening down, but is still popular.

Graduate #3
			Any form of software development...supplemented with functional knowledge of systems one is working on.

The University
			Have you found the term "Software Engineering" to be well recognised?

Graduate #1
			Definitely not, most people will go `Huh'. UQ should do more marketing to make the industry recognise "Software Engineering" is not just IT with an engineering name. Most people just think we are IT graduates who can do programming.

Graduate #2
			No. Most people mistake it for an IT degree, especially since many unis also call their IT course `Software Engineering' as well. I believe RMIT and QUT are the main perpetrators of this. We are rarely differentiated from IT graduates. I feel the best way to fix this would be possibly for the uni to market us some more in the way QUT market their graduates.

Graduate #3
			Not particularly - it all seems to come under the 'IT' umbrella.

The University
			Was the work experience you did as part of the Software Engineering degree valuable?

Graduate #1
			Not at all, we had to find work experience ourself and what I ended up getting is not related to software engineering at all. I think the uni should assist students in getting experience like the IT program at QUT. I think UQ graduates are behind QUT IT graduates because QUT students have 1 year of industry placement through QUT as part of their IT degree. I believe that's something UQ should adopt.

Graduate #2
			I err on the side of yes. I was unfortunate in the sense that a sizable minority of the work I did on my work experience was not related to software engineering in a strict sense (such as fixing networks, updating routing tables). However, the entire experience was valuable none the less.

Graduate #3
			Yes - experience is very important, especially in the foundation years of a career.

The University
			Where do you see yourself in five years time?

Graduate #1
			More a project management role, overlooking the overall system design of large software projects.

Graduate #2
			At least being richer than what I am now if all goes will with my company. If not, then maybe working for some other software development company.

Graduate #3
			IT Contractor in Europe or Australia.

The University
			Any advice for current software engineering students?

Graduate #1
			Get as much `relevant' work experience as you can get, exhaust all contacts you have. If you know which area you would like to work in, do your thesis project based on something close to or related to it.

Graduate #2
			With any rare free time that you have, learn to use more of the technologies that are used more throughout the IT industry. For example, UML for specifications, ASP, JSP, Perl or C for web development, and COM or CORBA for object technologies, and make absolutely sure that you master SQL. I do feel you need to choose a path to follow, either Windows or UNIX, and stick to it, since it is rare that you find people who excel at both. When you do choose a path, you should try to excel at it by mastering all the appropriate technologies, and get a qualification (such as MCP or MCSD) to show employers and customers that you are proficient in those areas.

Graduate #3
			No.