Seminar Expectations and Requirements, and Writing Assignment(s)

Seminar Expectations and Requirements, and Writing Assignment(s)

For seminar, you will be expected to attend the weekly Tuesday lecture and Thursday seminar, read the assigned material, complete one short in-class writing assignment per week, critique the writing of your peers (in seminar), assemble your writing and critiques into a portfolio for periodic faculty review, and (at the end of the quarter) compile and edit one or more those short writings into a single piece[1]. No partial credit will be awarded for seminar. You are also very strongly encouraged to co-facilitate one seminar session. This will be fun, and involves attending one Wednesday 10-11:30 seminar planning session.

The in-class writing assignment(s) for spring quarter will revolve around the PLATO Lecture Series theme (classical problems in computer science) and a major theme of the quarter – what does it mean to work in software engineering. We would like you to work through these themes in personal detail – how might the problem of the week presented by the lecturer and in the reading relates to your project and to your work in the industry. To that end, we are conniving a series of small in-class writing assignments. You will get feedback on this writing from faculty and students, and you can select from the in-class writing to prepare the major seminar writing assignment.

Faculty will read your portfolio about once every three weeks (Weeks 3,6,9) and return them within a week, so you can maintain the portfolio.

Below is the final assignment (describing a fictional but plausible situation):

The Student Originated Software program (10 years hence) has been awarded a special endowment to support student projects and a regular speaker series. The endowment has been created by SOS alumni who want to see continued the Evergreen education that launched their careers in the industry. Every year, one program alum is invited to give a special keynote address honoring the sponsors of the endowment and introducing new students in the program to the software industry. Being chosen as this speaker is a considerable honor – the selection committee chooses based on professional ability, ethical standing, involvement in community (both the computing industry and local). In short, the speaker is chosen because the committee believes that he or she could inspire the younger generation to be model software engineers.

You have been chosen to be the speaker in 2012, and you are asked to describe one or two experiences of your 10 year career in the software industry that inspire excellence – in building good software, and team work, leadership, mentoring younger colleagues, involvement in community and family, etc.

Your final writing assignment for the quarter is the above 10 minute (3-5 page) speech.

This assignment, which can be a revised compendium of 2-3 of the in class assignments, is due at the program retreat – Thursday, June 6, at 10am – our final class meeting of the year.

[1] More specifically: missing one seminar and one lecture could be forgiven. However, missing three or more meetings means you risk losing credit. We will base credit decisions on past and current performance and effort, i.e., a stellar attendance fall and winter, means we will be lenient.