SFSU Computer Science Department Advising Day August 2008 Prof. D. Petkovic 08/21/08

WELCOME

Outline SW trends driving markets, jobs and education About CS Department What is NEW About the program About this semester QA For specific questions see advisors today

Trends in Computer Science R&D and jobs Global development of computer software through international cooperation and outsourcing are the main characteristics of current and future software engineering development process Increased emphasis on building SW from components and services developed globally Everything is getting connected with WWW and wireless Critical need for making systems easy to use, on time and budget, and with adequate performance, with geographically dispersed teams Open source software community is another example of global collaborative approach to SW development. New areas: games, sensor networks, biotech, personal devices…

Mission and Objectives To prepare students for careers as software professionals To prepare students for graduate studies in Computer Science Important learning objectives used in order to achieve the above goals –

About the Department Main CS WWW site Mission and Objectives – About 400 undergrads and about 100 graduates 12 full time faculty and about 9 lecturers – Strong accomplishments and nationally recognized faculty – Strong links with local industry Strong research activity Center for Computing for Life Sciences

Motivation for updating the curricula with new types of skills ACM study on SW outsourcing and globalisation specifically mentions the need to train SE students in so called “soft skills”, teamwork, communication, SE process organization and issues related to globalisation Aspray W., Mayadas F., Vardi M.Y., Editors: “Globalisation and Offshoring of Software, A Report of the ACM Job Migration Task Force”, ACM 2006,

Jobs Jobs are plenty Demand very strong! CS one of the best careers – BUT –New skills are needed

Motivation: more than technical skills required – example job adv. Sr. Software Engineer Job Description The Software Engineer will work as part of an agile multi-disciplinary team to develop the software components of an enterprise-scale hospital information system. The individual must be a team-player and willing to function as a designer, developer, tester, and an analyst as required to achieve the goals of the team. Specific Responsibilities: 5+ years of professional experience developing commercial or enterprise-scale software products 3+ years of development experience with Java and J2EE (EJB, Servlets, and JSP) XP, Agile development experience is preferred Healthcare domain knowledge is preferred Exposure to multiple DBMS systems is preferred Understands concepts of the software development lifecycle Ability to function as a designer, developer, tester and to some degree, an analyst Must possess strong organization and communication skills Must exhibit a sense of and demonstrate responsibility, focus on delivery, and ability to work independently with appropriate technical direction Comfortable in a fast-paced, team-oriented environment Strong written and verbal skills from both business and technical perspectives

Some basics CS Office TH 906 CS WWW site – must visit regularly Read office and newsletters If questions, look at CS WWW, then ask office Classes start 08/26/08 Get advising often, there is also mandatory advising checkpoint for CSC 213, CSC 413 enrolment 1 unit = 2 hours of work/week

New in Fall and recently Initiatives in serious games and sensor arrays Lab remodeling and lab Committee and student helper Student Advisory Board WWW site redesign Grad program –MS Concentration in Computing and Business –Revision of all other MS concentration  better coverage and flexibility –Group Project Cluster requirement to ensure you get SW development team experience

Group Project Cluster Ensures that all students starting Fall 08 graduate by taking at least one of the team- intensive courses: CSC 630, Computer Graphics Systems Design CSC 631, Multiplayer Game Development CSC 640, Software Engineering CSC 658, Programming Café CSC 667, Internet Application Design and Development CSC 668, Object Oriented Programming Satisfies the learning objective: “Students will be able to solve problems working in group settings”.

New advising polices (as of Spring 08) Advising has been shown to significantly increase success in studies NEW: Attend Chair’s welcome group meeting at the beginning of each semester during CS Advising Day No more general SFSU advising day Mandatory advising for new and transfer students upon enrolment in 413 and 213 – check with the office on who to see Peer advising by CS students (does not replace faculty advising) CS Advising page

Reminder: plagiarism polices Cheating and plagiarism policies Zero tolerance, policies will be enforced!

Important links Undergraduate WWW page Major program Prerequisite chart Suggested plan of study CS Advising page DARS report: Cheating and plagiarism

Internal job opportunities for students CS WWW page for jobs: external (full time, part time), internal Get involved in some project with graduate students Check internal jobs: at SFSU, at CS Department (TAships, research grants) Individual or team projects get you great experience and help you get the job Center for Computing for Life Sciences – IT and cluster management - contact Mike Wong

Other developments Student Advisory Board formed. m m –Excellent forum to give us feedback Lab and faculties improved: –Improving lab management, WWW site for tracking problems –Lab committee, Student helper hired –Lab remodeling: TH 331, undergrad lab, grad lab

Join student chapter ACM Meet new friends Get tutoring Attend seminars (I.e. on job search) Get connections with industry during industry visits Advanced Programming Studio club

Don’t forget to have fun and get to know other students Good luck Think of grad program too Tell your friends about us!

Welcome graduate students!

Outline SW trends driving markets, jobs and education About CS Department What is NEW About the program About this semester Foreign students QA For specific questions see advisors today

Mission and Objectives To prepare students for careers as software professionals To prepare students for graduate studies in Computer Science Important learning objectives used in order to achieve the above goals –

MS Degree? MS degree becoming a key for advancement Combination of general CS skills, domain depth and “soft” skills is critical –Program concentrations ensure breath and depth. Thesis ensures ability to work independently, to write and to present Ability to work with geographically dispersed teams and multidisciplinary teams is increasingly important

About the Department Main CS WWW site Mission and Objectives – About 400 undergrads and about 100 graduates 12 full time faculty and about 9 lecturers – Strong accomplishments and nationally recognized faculty – Strong links with local industry Strong research activity Center for Computing for Life Sciences

Some basics CS Office TH 906 CS WWW site – must visit regularly Read office and newsletters If questions, look at CS WWW, then ask office Classes start 08/26/08 Get advising often Clear conditions early (including English proficiency) 1 unit = 2 hours of work/week Foreign students: observe OIP rules

New in Fall and recently MS Concentration in Computing and Business Revision of all other MS concentration  better coverage and flexibility Lab remodeling and lab Committee and student helper Initiatives in serious games and senor arrays Student Advisory Board WWW site redesign

Trends in Software Development Global development of computer software through international cooperation and outsourcing are the main characteristics of current and future software engineering development process Increased emphasis on building SW from components and services developed globally Everything is getting connected with WWW and wireless Critical need for making systems easy to use, on time and budget, and with adequate performance, with geographically dispersed teams Open source software community is another example of global collaborative approach to SW development. New areas: games, sensor networks, biotech, personal devices…

Motivation for updating the curricula ACM study on SW outsourcing and globalisation specifically mentions the need to train SE students in so called “soft skills”, teamwork, communication, SE process organization and issues related to globalisation Aspray W., Mayadas F., Vardi M.Y., Editors: “Globalisation and Offshoring of Software, A Report of the ACM Job Migration Task Force”, ACM 2006,

Jobs Jobs are plenty Demand very strong! CS one of the best careers – BUT –New skills are needed

Motivation: more than technical skills required – example job adv. Sr. Software Engineer Job Description The Software Engineer will work as part of an agile multi-disciplinary team to develop the software components of an enterprise-scale hospital information system. The individual must be a team-player and willing to function as a designer, developer, tester, and an analyst as required to achieve the goals of the team. Specific Responsibilities: 5+ years of professional experience developing commercial or enterprise-scale software products 3+ years of development experience with Java and J2EE (EJB, Servlets, and JSP) XP, Agile development experience is preferred Healthcare domain knowledge is preferred Exposure to multiple DBMS systems is preferred Understands concepts of the software development lifecycle Ability to function as a designer, developer, tester and to some degree, an analyst Must possess strong organization and communication skills Must exhibit a sense of and demonstrate responsibility, focus on delivery, and ability to work independently with appropriate technical direction Comfortable in a fast-paced, team-oriented environment Strong written and verbal skills from both business and technical perspectives

Graduate program description General; SW. Engineering; Computing for Life Sciences Concentrations –Breadth 9 units –Concentration core 9 units –Electives 6 units –Practicum option 3 units –Culminating Experience 6 units Total units PLUS NEW in Computing and Business starting this Fall

NEW MS Concentration in Computing and Business – with SFSU BUS school – starting NOW 3 core CS courses 3 required CS courses as designated in the General Concentration 1 CS elective course 1 Business elective course, approved by advisor. These are drawn from 700- or 800-level courses in Business, Management, Finance, Decision Sciences, or Marketing (3 units) 3 required business courses (8 units) –BUS 780- Accounting –BUS 788 Mng. Principles –BUS 784 Political, Social and legal Environment OR BUS 787 Marketing Equivalent of 2 courses for thesis/project; the thesis/project must have a business component. The student’s culminating experience committee will be composed of 2 CS faculty and one Business faculty. Total units

Benefits of new MS Concentration in Computing and Business Graduates with this concentration will have the skills to Perform R&D in the computing field Possess the skills and knowledge to manage software development teams or start their companies Assume management responsibilities in organizations that require managers who understand both the computing and business aspects of information technology. Assist with high-tech entrepreneurship ventures - assist in understanding and relating the technical feasibility of new ideas Speak to both high-tech groups, and communicate technical ideas and concepts to non-technical groups in the business organization Contribute to organizations that provide strategy consulting services to high technology companies (staff at these companies needs to have strong backgrounds in both technology and business)

Revision of MS Concentrations: General, SW Eng, Comp. For Life Sciences To ensure better coverage and flexibility SW Eng, Conc. requires a PM course from BUS School CSC 663 Details – New students must take this new program, old students can chose, see grad advisor

Some areas of focus Data management, databases, informatics Visualization HCI, usability Internet applications Global and practical SW Engineering, teamwork Bioinformatics, computing for life sciences Image processing, multimedia, AI Games Computing and Business Sensor networks

Center for Computing for Life Sciences (CCLS) CCLS is an official multidisciplinary SFSU Center for addressing problems in broad area of Computing for Life Sciences such as: bioinformatics, imaging, collaborative tools, UI, visualization, databases, computational biology and chemistry, applications in drug discovery, collaborative tools, algorithms etc. Goal is to develop CCLS into signature “marquee” program of SFSU CCLS is joint collaboration between Computer Science, Biology, Chemistry and Biochemistry, Math, Physics and Astronomy –

Serious Games for Nursing Education - NEW NEW CCLS project between CS Department, School of Nursing and Industry and design Combines CS, graphics, game concepts Faculty contact Prof. I. Yoon, M. Wong (CCLS) Money for research work and culminating experience projects available

Cluster Computing New 40 node DELL Cluster operational in CCLS – eClusterhttp://ccls.lab.sfsu.edu/bin/view/Cluster/DellPowerEdg eCluster For projects in computational biology and life sciences For education (distributed and parallel computing, data mining…)

Consult CS WWW page all the time Before asking the office or advisors, check our WWW page It has all the info, forms and policies Check WWW page at least once a week Check from the office and Chair’s welcome message from the WWW page NEW: Read CS newsletters

Advising - NEW Must see advisor upon start of the program Must attend first Graduate Seminar during the first term (CS Chair will overview grad program and faculty will overview projects) – Wednesdays 5:30 Should attend Chair’s welcome group meeting at the beginning of each semester Get timely advising as often as you need Those planning for Ph. D. program see CS Chair in the first semester Advising page

Graduate seminar (formerly Pernet) Brings outstanding speakers from academia an industry. Every Wednesdays 5:30 in TH 331. Exposes students to great topics and great speakers, helps give ideas for projects and jobs Each graduate student must attend all seminars in one Semester First two seminars by Prof. D. Petkovic: about graduate program and about department research CS faculty will overview their projects – excellent place to get ideas for culminating experience Starts mid September – check CS WWW page

Miscellaneous Conditionally classified graduate students: please focus on clearing your conditions first. Those who have SCI 614 as a condition must enroll in it during their first semester. Those with SCI 614 as a condition who wish to waive it must receive a grade PASS (not Marginal Pass) from GET test before enrolling in any graduate level courses. In case you need more depth in learning Java or basics of WWW development, we do recommend you take our “service” courses like CSC 203 and CSC 317 with cover Java and Intro to Web development, respectively. Due to popular demand, we are offering CSC 825 Advanced Automata Theory now. May not offer CSC 810 in Spring 09

Jobs Consult our employment page for internal, TA and external openings Attend ACM seminars on jobs search and use SFSU Career Center Start looking for internships now! Look also for SFSU jobs and research grant funded jobs in CS Department Foreign students: there are rules that must be strictly observed. CS Department only recommends, SFSU OIP applies for, UC Government is the one which issues permits to work

Reminder: plagiarism polices Cheating and plagiarism policies Zero tolerance. Policies will be enforced!

Important stuff Visit WWW site and read Program description For new grads Graduate page Check new schedule Importance of early advising. New students MUST see advisor Recommended sequence of study, selection of concentration – second semester; finding the advisor

More… Graduate seminar series requirement Internships – new polices on 893 (practicum) – important for foreign students All steps in preparing culminating project forms Culminating experience How to write culminating project report Cheating and plagiarism International program – Fulda, Germany Forms

Join student chapter ACM Meet new friends Get tutoring Attend seminars (I.e. on job search) Get connections with industry during industry visits Advanced Programming Studio club President: Eric Gregory

Welcome foreign students! Keep GPA and class load above the minimum - Overall GPA >= 3.0, class load 9 units minimum Take CSC 893 for summer internships, must be at SFSU for at least 2 semesters. Covered by new “practicum option”. See Post completion training allowed only when thesis is more than 95% complete, need confirmation by the advisor. Conditional graduate students should chose CR/NC option for conditional courses where possible: in case they get NC they do go on probation but do not lose work permit. Department will enforce conditions but this gives us greater flexibility No external full time work approved in Fall and Spring No CPT if on reduced course load (OIP rules)

Welcome foreign students! Learn about USA: customs, culture, geography Bay Area is one of the bets areas in USA: geographically, culturally, for education and technology Get internships with local industry Visit places, talk to people Learn English (reading, writing) Have fun!

Don’t forget to have fun and get to know other students Good luck Think of Ph. D. program Tell your friends about us!