Project Details
Description
This project plans to increase the number of highly skilled and talented software engineers in the workplace through scholarships. Stevens Institute of Technology proposes an 18-month Software Engineering (SwE) Master's Degree program to accomplish this in conjunction with offering 35 S-STEM scholarships over a 4 year period. The master's program will consist of 10 required courses, two electives, a summer bridge program, and a recommended summer internship. The program will build upon Stevens' nationally ranked career center and strong connections with local industry. Graduates will be well-qualified to enter the STEM workforce as software developers, testers, architects, and requirements engineers.
Recruitment of scholarship applicants will focus on students from liberal arts colleges. These students are often of very high ability, but find themselves under or un-employed with substantial student debt. Liberal Arts graduates have a higher percentage of women so that this program should improve the diversity of the STEM workforce. Recruitment efforts will include information sessions, mini-courses, and direct advertising to students and alumni. No formal computing background will be assumed, but students are expected to have strong quantitative skills. Evaluation data will be collected during recruitment, while students are applying, and while they are in the program. The collected recruitment data will focus upon the mini-courses and will be used to refine the courses. The application data will be collected by the Stevens' Graduate Admissions Office for both accepted and rejected students and will include applicant demographics, educational background, exposure to recruitment efforts, and admission decision. Extensive survey data will be collected during the two years students are in the program. The success of the entire program will be evaluated in recruitment, in retention, and in successfully placing students in long-term careers in software engineering. Results will be disseminated through conference presentations and journals and there are plans for a workshop to teach faculty members from other schools how to replicate the program.
Status | Finished |
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Effective start/end date | 15/04/15 → 31/03/21 |
Funding
- National Science Foundation