1. Final Year Projects Dr. Jeyakesavan Veerasamy Director of CS Senior Design Program University of Texas at Dallas, USA jeyv@utdallas.edu

2. Agenda Final year projects @ UT Dallas What can you do in your college? Preparing students for final year projects

3. CS final year projects @ UT Dallas Almost all projects are industry sponsored. We had ~18 industry projects in Spring 2012 term. Typically 4 students/team. Industry pays $8000/project, so they expect results! Industry mentor is actively involved  conducts weekly or biweekly meetings Faculty mentor has limited project manager role. Companies of all sizes: 1 person business to MNCs. Lot of repeat customers & students get jobs too. Final grade is decided by faculty mentor based on the project’s success and each student’s effort.

4. Industry projects: Process 2 or 3 months before each term: Soliciting projects from industry First 2 weeks of the term: Presentation of projects to students Students form the teams & indicate “favourite” projects. Project assignments  teams Kickoff meeting with industry NDA and IP agreements Remaining term: Students write “Project Proposal / Contract” – typically use 3 milestones (~1 month each) Weekly meetings or conference calls End of term: Senior Design Day Celebration: – Presentations & Poster session – All local industry folks are invited (50 to 100 attendees) – Awards to best projects

5. What can you do in your college? Achieve 100% industry projects Direct solicitation of projects from industry Service projects for college and local community Tackling “Trust factor”: Use your alumni to get started Track progress & ensure “reasonable” success? Encourage a mix of superstars & average students in each team Project success & students’ work  course grade Charge companies for projects? Use latest technologies if students want to do their own projects: – Smart phone applications & games – Use the cloud as the backend

6. Making students ready for final year projects Create passion for programming right from the start. Use the latest free tools in labs & make it exciting to learn: – TurboC++, NotePad  Alice, NetBeans/Visual Studio/… Showcase a few successful projects for incoming students Highlight team-effort – every one need not know all the latest technologies. Suggest a few extra projects in each course and encourage more students to do them. PSG Tech has a lot of enthusiastic students – how to spread that excitement further? Encourage more students to work with industry (internships?) in college breaks. May need additional passionate staff /resources

7. Questions & Answers jeyv@utdallas.edu