Author Description

"Computers are widely used in all sectors of our society, performing a variety of functions with the application software running on them. As a result, the market for software engineers is booming. The March 2006 issue of Money magazine ranked software engineer as number 1 of the 50 best jobs in the United States. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) 2010-2020 projections, the total number of jobs in application development software engineer and systems analyst positions is expected to increase from 520,800 to 664,500 (27.6%) and from 544,400 to 664,800 (22.10%), respectively. To be able to perform the work required of an application development software engineer or systems analyst, an education in software engineering is highly desired. However, according to the data released by BLS ("Earned Awards and Degrees, by Field of Study, 2005-2006"), only 160 bachelor and 600 master's degrees in software engineering, and 10,289 bachelor and 4,512 master's degrees in computer science were awarded in 2006. Thus, there is a significant gap between the demand and supply, especially for graduates with a software engineering degree"--