Retooling the Software Engineering Curriculum

The HOD asked me if there is any way in which the Curriculum could be made better, and of course I jumped onto the offer. So I have a week to come up with some suggestions. Some might impact the current students and some might be kept to incorporate next year/semester. A real life example of Phased Development, right? :)

So here are some of my quick thoughts on the matter. And since I am making a big hue and cry about creating an interactive process to learning, this is your opportunity to chime in. YOU will be the torch bearers of this process, incoming students (and teachers) will follow your example, so set the bar high and voice your opinions. Success here might lead to changes in other classes also. So take the initiative and help yourself.

My 2 cents on the matter -

1. The book is outdated. We need to get a book that has more practical examples and less theory. An excellent candidate would be "Software Engineering - A Practitioner's Guide" by Roger Pressman
2. UML integration. Although the HOD assured me you will learn UML in 7th Semester, but a rudimentary knowledge of UML will go a long way in making the concepts clearer, if I may use a cliche.
3. Group Projects. This I think would be a big and necessary change.
• At the end of  Unit 1 - basically where we are currently - students will be broken up into groups of 4-6 people.
• Each group will go through a Software Life Cycle through the semester and produce something of substance by the end.
• When the groups are formed, the students decide which process model they will follow, but with a twist. You create your own process - you take an existing process and add your improvements to it. The more innovative the changes, the better it'll be. Waterfall will not be allowed.
• You pick a sufficiently complex project and nominate one person in the group as a Customer. 
• As we go through the curriculum you create requirements, design the system and program, do backend coding, create test cases and test the system and deliver the project.
• You decide what softwares to use for each leg of the project. Everything should not be done in MS Word, but the idea is to expose you to new softwares out there which take into account the Software Engineering processes.
• Deliverables will match with the progression through units.
• Idea is not to have a running system (although that would boost your marks) but to find out creative ways to tackle Software Development.

So here are my very quick thoughts on the matter. If we follow my suggestions I can guarantee you will be better engineers and therefore have better chances of employability. And to those who only care about becoming the next "Ambani" - it won't hurt to have a paying job after college.