Thank you all participants for attending this first edition of SECM and sharing your insights and experiences with us. Special thanks to Diego Fontdevila for an inspiring talk and Nicolas Rosner for local logistics and encouraging student volunteers to attend the Park Bench Panel. We are grateful to ICSE student volunteers for sharing their insights during the Park Bench Panel and to PC members for diligently reviewing the submissions.
Artwork by Nayla Portas.
Welcome to SECM 2017, the First International Workshop on Software Engineering Curricula for Millennials!
Millennials are defined as the demographic cohort following Generation X, born between early 1980s and early 2000s. We are already educating most of them. Many more are reaching adulthood, and college age, about now, and will soon be in our classrooms. Howe and Strauss (Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation, Vintage Books, New York, 2011), who are credited with coining the term, state that
“as a group, Millennials are unlike any other youth generation in living memory. They are more numerous, more affluent, better educated, and more technically diverse. More importantly, they are beginning to manifest a wide array of positive social habits that older Americans [sic] no longer associate with youth, including a new focus on teamwork, and achievement…”
Clearly, Strauss and Howe’s characterization is not specific to American students: it is universal.
Educating the new breed of software engineers is tough. Millennials have been dominating the higher education programs for some time. This cohort has specific needs, learning styles, and skills. As Howe and Strauss emphasized, they are diverse, collaborative, tech-savvy, and keenly interested in emerging technologies. Companies quickly adjust to the shifting landscape of the new workforce both by capitalizing on the strengths of Millennials and creating a culture that caters to their expectations and needs. But what about educators? How should software engineering curricula and educators’ teaching styles adapt to these changes? Perspectives of students, teachers, and prospective employees should be heard to answer this question and identify strategies that work. Our goal in this workshop is to bring together main stakeholders to discuss the challenges of software engineering education and curricula for Millennials. We invite you to participate.
SECM 2017 will be held at the 39th International Conference on Software Engineering in beautiful Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Saturday May 27, 2017.