Things they would not teach me of in college: what Microsoft developers learn later

ABSTRACT

There has always been a gap between what college graduates in any field are taught and what they need to know to work in industry. However, today the gap in computer science has grown into a chasm. Current college hires who join Microsoft development teams only know a small fraction of their jobs and cannot be trusted to write new code until they have received months of in-depth training. The cause of this growing gap is a fundamental shift in the software industry, which now demands higher quality and greater attention to customer needs. This paper presents five new courses to add to computer science curriculums to help close this gap.

REFERENCES

• 1: Michael Howard , David E. Leblanc, Writing Secure Code, Microsoft Press, Redmond, WA, 2002
• 2: McDermott, Robin E., et al. The Basics of FMEA. Productivity Inc., 1996.
• 3: Microsoft Corporation. Find Solutions to Office XP Errors with Microsoft Error Reports. <http://office.microsoft.com/assistance/2002/articles/oErrorReport.aspx>. Microsoft Corporation, 2003.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.3 COMPUTERS AND EDUCATION
      K.3.2 Computer and Information Science Education
          Subjects: Computer science education

Additional Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.3 COMPUTERS AND EDUCATION
      K.3.2 Computer and Information Science Education
          Subjects: Curriculum

General Terms:
Design, Documentation, Human Factors, Legal Aspects, Management, Reliability, Security, Standardization, Verification

Keywords:
FMEA, accessibility, analysis, cohesion, collaboration, commercial, contracts, coordination, coupling, cryptography, design, diversity, globalization, multidisciplinary, privacy, quality, redundancy, reliability, requirements, security, testability