Software Engineering (MSc)

Software engineering constitutes an increasingly important area of computer science and deals with designing and developing high-quality software systems. In the programme you will acquire theoretical knowledge and practical skills related to the development of software intensive systems

The Master’s programme in Software Engineering, 120 credits, is a two-year programme at second-cycle level, where you will learn to design, verify and implement software intensive systems. You will gain knowledge about the principles for analysing, designing and implementing big and complex software systems, with a particular focus on predictability and performance. The programme also covers the current trends and those that will dominate software development in the future, such as component- and model-based development, service oriented programming, interoperability and global system development.

During the programme you will acquire knowledge and a deeper insight into software engineering in both industry and research. You will meet industrial guest lecturers and will have the opportunity to do your degree project in cooperation with one of our industry partners. You will get an industrial perspective of software development in several courses and an insight into how modern hi-tech company work. You will be working with teachers and researchers in projects at the University, and you will have an opportunity to refine your research skills through interaction with internationally recognised researchers. Moreover, around half of the degree projects are done within one of our research projects. There are also many opportunities to study parts of the programme abroad, either as an exchange student or by studying the second year at one of our partner universities in Europe, thereby taking a double degree through the GSEEM-programme or the NISS-programme.

The responsibility for the programme lies with the Division of Computer Science and Software Engineering at MDH. Our research focuses above all on component- and model-based development, software processes and the development of reliable systems. We transfer our research findings to our courses and study programmes to the greatest extent possible, and the second-cycle level courses contain the latest software engineering research.

As a student at this programme you also have the opportunity to take part in various software engineering competitions. At ICSE, which is the highest-ranked conference in software engineering in the world, four of the ten final teams in 2009, among those the winning team, came from MDH. In 2011 two teams from MDH reached the final on Hawaii, of which one came in second place. In 2013, students from MDH won the competition once more and during 2016 students from MDH reached the semifinal. The competition is a voluntary part of the project course in ‘Distributed Software Development’, which you will be reading in the second year of the programme. In 2017 this course was elected into the ‘Hall of Fame’ at the CSEE&T conference for software engineering education.