Soft Skills: What do Computing Program Syllabi Reveal About Non-Technical Expectations of Undergraduate Students?

Abstract

Industry expectations of graduates are higher than ever. Not only are they required to be skilled in several technologies, but also need to be equipped with non-technical skills - often called soft skills or professional skills. This puts pressure on computing programs, as educators try to integrate these requirements into already full curricula. Although incorporating such skills into programs is seemingly common practice, little is known about what skills are being taught and why, outside of isolated case studies. In this work we ask: What non-technical skills are expected of undergraduate students according to computing programs? To answer this we manually curated 278 non-technical syllabi from 110 universities in 30 European countries. The most frequently identified skills are teamwork, ethics, written/oral communication, and presentation skills, while the development of one's own values, motivating others, creativity, and empathy feature least frequently. By providing a detailed analysis and an interactive website visualizing this data, we hope to aid the community in reviewing which non-technical skills are taught with an aim to teaching the right skills to the right students. This work sheds new light on what is expected of undergraduate computing students in terms of non-technical skills and identifies areas where more coverage might be needed.