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From: shebs%defun.utah.edu.uucp@utah-cs.UUCP (Stanley T. Shebs)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: American Programmer
Message-ID: <5384@utah-cs.UUCP>
Date: 31 Mar 88 15:26:51 GMT
References: <555@psu-cs.UUCP> <1434@ur-tut.UUCP> <3415@bunker.UUCP> <3326@zeus.TEK.COM> <461@vsi.UUCP> <5775@bunny.UUCP>
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Reply-To: shebs%defun.utah.edu.UUCP@utah-cs.UUCP (Stanley T. Shebs)
Organization: PASS Research Group
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In article <5775@bunny.UUCP> jwg1@bunny.UUCP (James W. Gish) writes:

>[...]  If you break out of this traditional
>structure and choose a large complex system that is continually
>evolving as the focus of the design, programming, maintenance, project
>management, enhancement, testing, prototyping... assignments over a
>four year period you could better address some of the concerns about
>getting a feel for realistic system development. [...]

This is actually rather common, at least on an informal basis.  Good
students (mostly grads, but some undergrads) will get involved in some
major ongoing research project, at the level of maintenance/enhancement.
The experience can be extremely realistic, depending on the project!

Problems are several: employers may not consider such activities to be
"real experience", students not participating will be handicapped later
on, perhaps without realizing it, time can be consumed by clerical work
that would have been better spent on classes, and so forth.  It's not
clear that a formal mechanism for projects would be any improvement, though.

							stan shebs
							shebs@cs.utah.edu