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Faculty Views on the Goals of an Undergraduate CS Education and the Academia-Industry Gap

Published: 26 February 2020 Publication History

Abstract

Previous work has found that recent computer science graduates often experience difficulty transitioning into their new roles in industry due to a significant gap between their academic experiences and industry's expectations. Although multiple studies have identified the views of students and members of industry on the value of a CS degree as preparation for industry, the faculty perspective on this topic remains unclear. Understanding these views could shed light on why the academia-industry gap has persisted despite the attention. This study identified faculty views on the goals of an undergraduate education and a CS major, focusing on preparation for careers in industry. In order to identify a spectrum of faculty views, we interviewed 14 faculty from a variety of backgrounds across three institutions. A phenomenographic analysis of the transcripts reveals that many faculty believe that industry preparation is an important programmatic goal, yet they encounter significant resource obstacles to achieving that goal.

Supplementary Material

ZIP File (cser229aux.zip)
pdf file with the questions used during the interviews.

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      cover image ACM Conferences
      SIGCSE '20: Proceedings of the 51st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education
      February 2020
      1502 pages
      ISBN:9781450367936
      DOI:10.1145/3328778
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      Published: 26 February 2020

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      1. academia-industry gap
      2. computer science education
      3. faculty views
      4. phenomenography

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      • (2023)From "Ban It Till We Understand It" to "Resistance is Futile": How University Programming Instructors Plan to Adapt as More Students Use AI Code Generation and Explanation Tools such as ChatGPT and GitHub CopilotProceedings of the 2023 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research - Volume 110.1145/3568813.3600138(106-121)Online publication date: 7-Aug-2023
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