DS/CS-519 · Spark! Software Engineering Practicum

DS/CS-519 is the Spark software engineering practicum. Students work in teams to deliver production-quality software for a real partner and, in the process, learn how collaborative engineering feels when the stakes are higher than a toy assignment.

What students practice

• Agile planning and milestone-setting
• GitHub-based collaboration and code review
• Testing, debugging, and documentation
• Client communication and requirements discovery
• Presenting work clearly at demos and handoffs

Why students take it

The practicum is where classroom skills get pulled into one workflow: you have to read other people’s code, explain trade-offs, recover from surprises, and finish something that another person can actually use.