Increasingly, employers who hire CS graduates are clamoring for students who have "soft skills" to complement their knowledge of programming and technology. Soft skills include business knowledge. This semester the CS department is offering three courses aimed at developing business skills. In History of Computing, students will learn how and why the computing industry has its current form. In Business Concepts for Technologists, students will learn basic business survival skills. In Software Testing in the 21st Century, students will focus on the work flows employed in the business of managing software testing.
Finally, the CS Department is experimenting with a new emphasis in game studies. The first prototypical courses will be offered this semester Introduction to Game Design and Introduction to Game Studies.
Warning: Given the constraints of the state budget, these courses can only be offered if a sufficient number of students enroll. I do expect these courses to be popular, so enroll early.
Note: All CS185C sections can be used to satisfy the elective requirement for the BSCS degree.
How did computer architectures, software applications, and programming languages evolve to their present state? Why were certain paths taken but others abandoned throughout the history of computing? By learning the lessons of how past architects and designers overcame the technological, economic, and societal constraints of their day, we can become better architects and designers in our present day.
Students will work in small project teams to research the history of computing. Based on the team members’ interests and with the instructor’s consent, each team will devise a project that investigates some historic hardware or software artifact or methodology, a legendary computing pioneer or company, or the evolving impact of computing on work and society. All projects will rely on original sources.
Example projects include
Students will have access to the archives of the
Each project team will present oral progress reports of its
activities during the semester to the rest of the class. Final deliverables
will be research results that can be submitted to the
One of the following:
CS47 or equivalent knowledge of computer hardware
CS46B or equivalent knowledge of
computer software
Instructor consent
Ron Mak is a researcher at
Technologists entering the professional world can significantly enhance their abilities to make contributions and gain competitive advantages over their peers if they have a concept of how today’s businesses function. This course is designed to provide technology students with an overview of the key aspects of businesses. The topics selected provide a balance between business theories and their practical uses. The course is set up to expose students to how all of the relevant business topics link together. It gives the answers of why these issues are important for technologist as well as how business leaders use these skills to make decisions. The course will be conducted in an interactive format, which requires students to actively participate in class discussions, practice their business writing skill and perform a significant final project with fellow team members. While it is an overview of key business concepts, the contents can be useful for technology professionals to evaluate their places in business and to help them plan their careers going forward.
Upper division standing in the Colleges of Science or Engineering.
Mike Cheng is a retired executive with thirty years of
industry experience. Since 2005, he has been serving as a member on the Advisory
Board of the Ageno School of Business at Golden Gate
University (GGU). After leaving the industry in 2007, Mr. Cheng devoted his
time to work in an academic environment with the goals of developing next
generation business leaders and advancing the cause of higher education. In his
current role as an Adjunct Professor of GGU’s Ageno School of Business, Mr. Cheng brings his professional
experience into the classroom to augment the management theory. Mr. Cheng is in
the process of being conferred as a Faculty-In-Residence at the College of
Science at San Jose State University and is already working on establishing an
interdisciplinary curriculum that introduces business concept to science and
technology students. He also serves on the campaign committee at
An applied approach to software testing, the class will start with understanding business requirements and by drafting the document of understandings (DOU) or Statement of Works (SOW) for a test projects. We will then cover the different types of testing and thus map and create the correct test cases as well as create MS project plans with the different test phases. You will learn how to identify testing risk, learn basic testing risks, and learn how to manage them. We will create spreadsheets so you can learn how to track your financials; create status reports and present test metrics. We will also look into what it takes to close out a test project.
CS151 or equivalent or instructor consent.
Kaushik Joglekar
has been a Tester and Project management in IBM Global Services for the past 11
years. He has managed multiple internal
and commercial projects simultaneously, most recently as the Solution Project
Mgr for the NASCO account, and the separation of Lenovo and InfoPrint
divisions in IBM. He has experience
leading teams in the
On the personal side Kaushik is a
graduate of the IBM Leadership Education for Asian Pacific program and is
involved in the local community. He also
sits as a Board Member of a City of
Survey of video games and how they are developed. Covers both traditional industry game development, independent game development, and student game development, with a focus on award winning games and what makes them tick. By the end of the class, students should know about the different jobs available to them in the industry, have presented a game pitch, and a prototype version of a game.
Upper division standing or consent of instructor.
Jared Finder has been programming games since High School. The first game he made was a Sonic the Hedgehog clone done after (and sometimes instead of) his homework. Jared has worked on 12 professional games, most recently Star Trek Online, and is currently employed at Cryptic Studios working on Graphics and Tools.
This course is a broad intro to board games, video games and related culture. Students will read about games, write about games, design games, and play games.
James
Morgan is and artist, educator and researcher. He has an MFA in Digital Media
Art from the CADRE Laboratory for New Media. He is the director of Ars Virtua and has worked as a
curator for nearly ten years, and shown work nationally and internationally at
venues such as 01SJ, ISEA2006, EMAF,
James
is the advisor for the Game Development Club at SJSU.