Integrative Experience

All undergraduates are required to take several general education (gen-ed) courses. This is done in the belief that a university-educated person should have a background in a broad range of subjects outside of their chosen major. Being exposed to these courses can make you a better scientist and engineer because you have a better perspective on human culture and behavior. This is especially important for software engineers as software has profound effects on human society.

This software engineering course is designated as an “Integrative Experience” course. That means you are given the opportunity to reflect on how your gen-ed courses relate to your learning experience in this course. In this way, you can develop and extend your awareness of how gen-ed subjects integrate with your technical experience as an engineer. This perspective is an important part of your formation as an ethical practitioner of software engineering.

Please write a one page essay (5 paragraphs) covering the ways you expect your general education experiences to impact, enhance, inform, or affect your learning experience and performance in a software engineering course. Please be sure to include both observations made in group, and your personal experience observations.

This software engineering course characteristics:

• Much of what you will do is not predefined or structured.

• You and your team will have to analyze and specify what and how    the system you develop has to do- based on what the customer      proposes.

• You and your team will need to research and choose software.

• You may not be familiar with the type of system you will develop      and may not have ever coded with others in a team.

• You will need to keep engaged with your team throughout the          semester.

General Education courses taken: World Religions, Psychology, Sociology, English Composition, etc.