[David]
There's a delineation between people who use
technology and people who create the rules
by which the technology will be governed.
So that's what the master’s program, it
occurred to me, is for.
[Del]
In this program, we learn software engineering,
but at the level that we're considering how
to compare different designs or components
in the architecture and how they might interact.
Being a principal architect at a company requires
that kind of knowledge.
[Hazeline]
The core curriculum consists of advanced programming
courses as well as advanced software engineering
concepts.
[David]
You take one in research methodology, which
is really unique, I think, to the University
of Washington.
[Hazeline]
The research component, a large part of it
comes at the end when they do their capstone.
However, even in the individual courses, like
the core courses they take or the elective
courses they take, the research of the faculty
gets weaved into the curriculum of the course.
So the students not only learn about what
is out there, what has already been published,
but they get exposed to just really cutting-edge
research that the faculty members in CSS are
working on.
We have faculty members who are working on
bioinformatics, computational neuroscience,
computer vision, computer science education,
software engineering, parallel computing,
cybersecurity — just to name a few.
[David]
So I, for example, manage a software engineering
team.
And so my project, in a cohort of five was,
to develop software for an IDE tool — to
develop that software, design architecture
and build it — but then also to apply user
studies and actually present it to users.
[Hazel]
For a full time, students are able to complete
it in about five quarters.
If they're working in a company and are part-time
students, then usually it takes them about
two to two and a half years to complete the
program.
Many of our courses, if not most, are evening
classes — so it really caters to the professionals
who wish to pursue an advanced degree.
[David]
It is very hard to find another master's program
with this level of rigor.
I mean it really is world-class.
[Hazeline]
We have high-caliber faculty members in the
CSS program.
We have faculty members who have won external
awards from agencies that are highly competitive.
[Del]
The student base is smaller, but the teacher
to student ratio is higher.
So you get more one-on-time with the professors
here, and they count on you more to actually
get research done.
[Hazeline]
Students have come out saying, "Oh the experience
that we've had in your program is so valuable.
I'm now working in this dream job, this big
company."
And we've had students who have gone on to
work at Google, at Amazon, at Boeing, at AT&T
— the big companies around here.
There's a transformation, I would say, from
the time the students come into the program
to when they're done with the program.
