Putting Engineering into Software Engineering Education

The current practice of software engineering bears only slight resemblance to the usual standards of engineering practice. This is in part a consequence of the immaturity of the field, but it also results from the failure of software engineering education to instill an engineering mindset in students. This position paper discusses the character of engineering practice with special emphasis on the routine use of reference materials; based on this characterization, it suggests ways software engineering education could better support good engineering practice.