posted on 2009-01-01, 00:00authored byRay Bareiss, Todd Sedano
The Carnegie Mellon’s Silicon Valley Campus
offers a master’s degree in Software Engineering, with
technical and development management tracks,
targeted at working software professionals in Silicon
Valley. We believe the program to be unique in that it
is entirely team-based and project-centered. Students
learn by doing as they are coached just in time by
faculty in the context of their work on authentic
projects, and they are evaluated based on what they
produce. In response to our interactions with an
industry characterized by innovation and short project
development timelines, the program evolved from one
focused on “high ceremony” processes to one focused
on agile software development methodologies. Student
satisfaction is high: Eighty-seven percent of our
alumni believe that the program has given them a
competitive advantage with respect to their
professional peers, and their promotion and salary
histories bear out this belief.