Software Development Minor

The School of Computing is proud to offer a minor in Software Development.  The Software Development minor focuses on practical software development skills and provides a broad introduction to computing.  This minor experience provides students with basic essential skills that add value to their main degree program.  The Software Development minor prepares students with skill sets to enable them to meet the growing demand for familiarity and competency with software development. The minor is designed to enable students from a diverse set of majors and backgrounds to participate and provide a strong foundation in software development to allow them to apply computing throughout their career.

The minor's objectives are anchored around a set of core outcomes, such that students completing the minor will be able to:

  • Apply sound software development principles and methodologies to create software systems that solve real-world problems in various disciplines.
  • Interact, use and manage data and solve data-centric problems; organize, visualize, and communicate digital data effectively and efficiently; and use creative competencies to generate creative solutions.
  • Understand the roles of various stake-holders in software development projects including domain experts, project managers, customers, and developers.
  • Contribute one’s expertise to the solution of problems by effectively collaborating and communicating with other stake-holders in software development projects.

Requirements

Starting in 2024, the requirements to fulfill a Software Development minor will become extremely flexible; a student only needs to complete 15 credit hours of School of Computing courses (any CSCE-designated courses)!  In addition, the School of Computing will consider up to 6 credit hours of computing course(s) taken outside the School of Computing.  Contact the faculty advisor to recieve approval.  Some of the courses that we grant credit for include (but are not limited to):

Getting Started

First, we recommend that you officially declare your minor as soon as possible; speak with your academic advisor to declare a minor.  We recommend that you start with one of the following courses:

  • Fundamentals of Computer Science (CSCE 101) - provides a broad introduction to computing with some Python programming
  • Computer Science I - Informatics Focus (CSCE 155T) - an in-depth introduction to computing with an informatics focus using Python
  • Computer Science I (CSCE 155A) - a formal introduction to computing using Python

More Information

  • The minor is open to all non-School of Computing UNL students; it is not available to Computer Science, Computer Engineering nor Software Engineering majors
  • The minor is a broad introduction to computing with a focus on practical programming skills.  Students wanting a greater depth and core-computing concepts should consider a Minor in Computer Science
  • For any questions or concerns, contact the faculty advisor!

Faculty Advisor

Dr. Chris Bourke
chris.bourke@unl.edu
Associate Professor of Practice
School of Computing
College of Engineering