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David Janzen 
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David Janzen

President Elect of Tabor College


Professor Emeritus
California Polytechnic State University
Computer Science Department
San Luis Obispo, California
Email: djanzen (at) calpoly.edu

co-founder
Steadfast Innovation, LLC
Creator of Squid
San Luis Obispo, CA

I am retired so I am no longer accepting Senior Project Students

Check out Pitch2Programmers event to find a senior project.
Old Courses

Software Engineering Capstone::

The SE Capstone consists of three courses over an academic year:
CSC 402 Software Requirements Engineering (Fall)
CSC 405 Software Construction (Winter)
CSC 406 Software Deployment (Spring)

Three to five teams of four to six upper-level undergraduate students each develop the same system for an industrial sponsor. The industrial sponsor serves as the business customer, establishing requirements and acceptance criteria in consultation with the Cal Poly faculty. While the courses include typical academic activities such as lectures, readings, and exams, the capstone project is the focal point and primary outcome.

Companies interested in proposing a project for the SE Capstone should see the Call for Proposals.

Students interested in participating in the SE Capstone should have completed the prerequisites of CSC 305, 308, and 309.

Working with Cal Poly Computing Students::

Check out this brief guide to ways to work with us.

Research Interests::

  • Empirical Software Engineering
  • Agile Methods
  • Test-Driven Development
  • Object-Oriented Systems
  • Design Patterns
  • Software Metrics
  • Computer Science, Software Engineering, and Information Systems Pedagogy

Research Projects::

  • Does Active Learning Build Grit? (sponsored by NSF)
  • Test-Driven Learning with WebIDE (sponsored by NSF)
  • Android at Cal Poly (sponsored by Google)
  • Software Engineering Evidence Database (SEEDS) (now defunct)
  • Test-Driven Learning: Pedagogical Patterns for Introducing Test-Driven Development in Early Programming Courses (sponsored by Lockheed Martin)
  • Assessing the impacts of Test-Driven Development on Internal Software Quality

Selected Publications::

Student Research::

I think the best senior project and masters thesis topics are the ones that a student comes up with on their own. However, I have plenty of ideas to offer on a range of topics. If you want to talk through some possibilities, feel free to come by during office hours, or send me an email to schedule a time.

Pitch2Programmers event to find a senior project.

M.S. Guidelines

Senior Project Guidelines


Outreach::

CS4HS - supporting area high school computing teachers
EPIC - summer engineering camp at Cal Poly

Old News:: (not kept current)


Software Engineering Careers

What is the difference between SE and CS?
The U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics reports the median salary (2010) for computer application software engineers was $90,530 and predicts a 30% increase in software engineering jobs in the next ten years.
See this link addressing myths on CS careers.
Software Engineering Careers (by Computer Science Online)
Information Technology Careers (by Computer Science Online)
Computer Engineering Careers (by Computer Science Online)
Marissa Mayer, female computer scientist and VP at Google (great role-model for women in computing, if you don't have time for the whole thing, watch the first part then skip to about the 47 minute mark)
Marissa Mayer, SIGCSE'08 Keynote (scroll down to find video)
Computer Science Online

Software Engineering Advising Resources

Other::

IEEE Software Agile Taxonomy
Safari Books Online (access from on campus)
Cal Poly Home | Cal Poly Find It
 
CSC Department | SE Major

Last Update: 08/09/2017


David S. Janzen
Computer Science
California Polytechnic State University
San Luis Obispo, Ca 93407
805.756.2929
djanzen (at) calpoly.edu