Software engineering at work: choose your electives wisely!

Tue, 09 Dec 2025 19:55:22 -0500

The last day of classes is here. Goodbye Fall 2025 and welcome Spring 2026. We have seats available in several sections including special topics in software engineering, AI Agent Computing. If you are looking for an elective or know a student looking for one for the Spring 2026 semester, please have them reach out to the software engineering program GAs, Viswanth, vdonda1@umbc.edu and Nandini, nandinm1@umbc.edu who can assist in getting them enrolled.

Electives of interest to students in IS, HCC, CS, Data Science, and other majors:

Special Topics in Software Engineering | SENG 691

*NEW* AI Agent Computing: New course first run in Fall 2025. Do you need an AI agent? Do you know how to build a virtual or embodied agent? Do you want to use Agent Computing to build new applications, tools, and devices?

Data Engineering: Taught by an expert in the field. Do you want to be a data engineer? Do you know how to engineer data for large scale applications? Do you know the 5 modalities of modern data stores? Do you want to use and create advanced data tools to build the next generation of intelligent systems?

Reading to Write Code: Do you know how to read large open-source code baselines? What if we ask you to add a new feature to an existing code baseline that already has 2 million lines of code and has been in development for 6 years? What do you do?

Software Process Management, Software Products Engineering, Software Social Impact:

Software Process Management | SENG 638: Do you want to become a process engineer? When do you use agile processes? Do rich processes still have a place? Can we use a process modeling language to create processes that are purpose-made?

Advanced Software Engineering | SENG 645: Do you want to become a product owner? Do you know how to engineer a software product? What does it take to create a high-fidelity prototype? Do you want to build a minimally viable product (MVP)?

Ethics in Software Engineering | SENG 601: Software has entered into everyday objects and now the game has changed. What is the social impact of software? Do you build software that's ethical first? What are the most important attributes of intelligent software applications?