Elizabethtown College students who enrolled in a software engineering course gained valuable professional experience by working with real clients this past fall to solve problems using innovative software and turning their own ideas for startup companies into reality.
Throughout the semester, students in Information Systems Lecturer Nancy Reddig’s CS 341 Software Engineering class completed work for campus clients by operating like a startup company, which Reddig named the Elizabethtown College Development Zone (ECDZ).
“When students graduate from Etown, they will need to work in teams at technical
companies, so this class really opens students’ eyes to the ways in which software engineering teams work together using agile methods,” Reddig said. “For many of these projects, we were able to have real clients here on the Etown campus. Knowing someone will use your software makes the project take on a completely different perspective than the typical class project that ends once the class is over.”
Their projects included a stock market tracking website, a robot delivery service from the Jay’s Nest, and an inventory tracker for the Blue Jay Pantry. Each team built its own project boards, created requirements, and set up tasks that would help them successfully reach its goals.
Many students worked with other Etown faculty and staff as their clients, including Assistant Director for The School of EMCS/STEM Relationship Development Stephanie Zegers, Director of the Center for Community and Civic Engagement Javita Thompson, and Director of the Bowers Writers House Jesse Waters.
Computer Engineering major Joe Kutteh ’23 appreciated the unique way that Reddig organized the course.
“I enjoyed how Professor Reddig taught the class because it allowed us to experience how software is developed in the industry,” Kutteh said. “I was able to learn web development languages like HTML and PHP, areas I had limited knowledge of previously.”
The concept continues this spring semester, as Reddig will teach a CS 409 – System Design, Management, Integration course in which students will be working with various cloud-based systems to install several open-source software systems to meet the upgrade needs of a fictitious company. In some cases, the students that took Software Engineering will be able to further their projects by adding new requirements to their system.
“ECDZ was a fun experience for me,” Reddig said. “I hope the students benefited from a practical hands-on simulation approach to the topic. Since this course fulfills one of the students’ Signature Learning Experience (SLE) requirements, I’m glad that so many of them produced a piece of software that they can share with future employers as an example of the work they have done in college.”
Learn more about the students’ projects on Reddig’s LinkedIn page.
