A Lack of Professional Skills Development in Computer Science Curriculum and the Importance of Professional Skills in the Changing Work Environment; Data and Algorithmic Bias and the Potential Solutions

Students must develop the technical and soft skills necessary to be successful when faced with engineering challenges, both independently and as a team post-graduation. To address these problems and develop the skills needed, students in the University of Virginia’s Advanced Software Development Techniques course work in teams of five to create a semester-long software application. Our team developed a roommate finder web application that matches users based on certain preferences. As a team we agreed on the different functionalities of the application, created a list of requirements and features, assigned specific deadlines, and determined who would be assigned to design each feature. To develop the web application, we used multiple tools, including Git, GitHub, the Django Web Framework, Heroku, Python and others. Over the course of the semester our team developed a fully functional roommate finder web application, as well as technical, theoretical, and soft skills essential within the software industry and as an engineer.