Integrating career development into computer science undergraduate curriculum

Abstract

Career guidance is commonly viewed as an integral part of university services in the United States. Typically, this work is conducted through a dedicated office that provides professional guidance in such areas as: resume writing, interview preparation, and job hunting. While these are all essential to a student's career development, students in the computer science discipline have additional needs that are not part of this general guidance. This need is due to the fact that a typical computer science program contains multiple, and often very different, concentration areas. This paper introduces the idea of how career guidance can be implemented at both the departmental and course level in the discipline of computer science. We are proposing a four-step strategy that is integrated into a student's four year computer science curriculum. As part of this idea, a required first year seminar course will help to introduce core concepts in each of the concentration areas found in the computer science degree within the respective department. In the student's sophomore year, a career planning module named “You and Your Options” will be embedded into various classes to help further expose the students to their career possibilities. During their junior year, students will have opportunities to be engaged in service-learning projects where their soft skills such as time management, conflict resolution, problems solving, and communication can be developed. Finally, in their senior year, a capstone or internship course will be required for every student in which they will complete a project that combines knowledge and skills from at least three areas in computer science. We believe that this approach will allow each student a deeper understanding about their specific strengths in the different concentration areas and provide them a more well-rounded experience. This proposed plan systematically and purposefully guides students in understanding their own strength and helps to identify areas of improvement, in both hard skills and soft skills. The effectiveness of this approach is demonstrated through both positive feedback from former students and employers, as well as quantitatively through increased job placement rate of graduates.