Learning by doing: Software projects in CSE education

Abstract

Software development is one of the main routine activities in Computational Science and Engineering (CSE). Nevertheless, there is a huge gap between software engineering techniques available and established today in moat fields whore mainstream software) is developed on the one hand and the typical extent, of their application in a CSE context on the other hand. CSE curricula often reflect this tendency by not including software engineering topics adequately. This contribution reports experiences with a new course format called "student project" in the CSE manter's program at TU München. There, for about half a year, a group of 4-8 students cooperate on a software development project - this time dealing with molecular dynamics. Although it is one objective to got a well performing code, the project's focus is on the consequent application of software engineering and project management practices. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006.