Software Design Program Offers Career Prep

The goal of the software design courses in Bachelor of Applied Information Sciences - Bridging to Software Systems Design at Centennial College is to educate students in a way that prepares them for the industry in just two years. As such, the fast-paced software design program is a balance of theory and practical application that puts it to the test. Let’s take a look at how this balance plays out and other essential facts of the software design program.

• The offering is unique in that computer program/analyst graduates or software engineering graduates from Centennial or a similar program at another college may be eligible to obtain its four-year Bachelor of Applied Information Sciences in Software System Design in four semesters.
  
  
• Students join the program in the fall during its fifth semester.
  
  
• Aside from being three-year computer programmer/analyst diploma holders from an Ontario college, or computer science/information technology/software engineering degree holders from a recognized institution with a GPA of 2.8 or higher, the application process asks students to prove English proficiency and reviews their transcript.
  
  
• In a first-of-its kind joint accreditation, the Canadian Information Processing Society and the Canadian Council of Technician and Technologies has fully recognized all software design courses.
  
  
• The accreditation benefits students in that it makes them eligible to apply for certified membership to either CIPS or their provincial engineering technology association.
  
  
• Because students have already completed some sort of education in this area, the software design program includes three bridging courses (one in computer architecture and two in mathematics).
  
  
• Among specific software design courses are: Software Standards, Testing & Maintenance, Database Programming, Computer and Human Interaction, Software Design Patterns, Computer Architecture, Programming for Network Systems, Architecting Database Solutions and many others.
  
  
• To learn the business side of the industry, the software design program also boasts courses such as: Project Management, Technical Writing and Documentation, Business Consulting, Entrepreneurship in the New Economy and more.
  
  
• All courses employ the use of high-tech labs to ensure students apply what they are learning.
  
  
• The most practical aspects of the software design program at Centennial College are three Software Development Projects, which are interconnected. Students develop and/or implement a software systems design project that meets stated business objectives for an organization in a specific vertical market such as: health services, insurance, real estate, banking, heavy manufacturing, retail, transportation, and government. In groups, they also design and implement a complete application for a small company by using enterprise tools to build enterprise-level data integration and provide view of all business data. Lastly, students design and apply a complete an application for a real business by applying agile software development techniques, such as Test Driven Design.
  
  
• After completing their software design courses, students can confidently apply for a range of jobs, among which are: software tester, game programmer, computer programmer, system analyst, business analyst, software developer, web application developer, database administrator, and applications or software support.