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MS in Software Engineering, Development Management Track Blog

Wondering if a Carnegie Mellon degree is right for you? Read about our students' experiences through the MS in Software Engineering, Development Track program.

Linda is a first year part-time student in Carnegie Mellon's MS Software Engineering, Development Management track. She is a Software Developer at Electronic Arts in Redwood Shores, CA. She likes to dance and sing and her favorite videogame is The Beatles RockBand. She enjoys Indian, Japanese, Thai, Italian and Mexican food. She comes from Mexico City, and has being living in CA for the past two years.
Pras Sarkar is a second-year part-time student in the MS Software Engineering Development Management track. He works in Yahoo! Labs. His responsibilities include materializing ideas and concepts into engaging prototypes and demos, some of which ultimately mature into products that Yahoo! visitors use everyday. He is interested in emerging web technologies, social interaction over digital mediums, and creative interfaces that push the boundaries of human computer interaction.
Vineet is a Lead Developer at Boeing and a second year grad student in the part-time MS Software Engineering, Development Management program. He loves reading, playing with his daughter and pursuing the religious aspect of his life. He is an active volunteer of Vedic Cultural Center, a Seattle-based organization dedicated to promote the Vedic (ancient Indian) arts, culture, music and dance.
Truc is a second year part-time student in Carnegie Mellon's MS Software Engineering, Development Management track. She is a Software Engineer at Lockheed Martin in Sunnyvale, CA. She loves food and enjoys anything related to food: going to different restaurants, cooking, watching the Food Network, and of course, eating!

Monday, September 22, 2008



My name is Vineet and I work for the Boeing Company in Seattle, Washington, as a Lead Developer. Twelve years ago, after graduating from IIT Roorkee in India, I started my career as a Chemical Engineer in the process industry. However, I soon tired of the night shifts and moved my career into the software industry. The Java boom in late 90’s gave me an easy entry into the world of IT. However I always felt my background in Chemical Engineering was hampering my career in IT. Even acquiring a number of IT certifications didn't give me any satisfaction. I wanted to pursue higher education in software. When I arrived in the United States in 2005, one of my colleagues, Andy Chow told me about MS Software Engineering program at Carnegie Mellon Silicon Valley. I was excited by the opportunity to participate remotely from Seattle but still be part of a working team. I applied last year and I got a chance to fulfill one of my dreams to complete my master’s degree from one of the best universities in the US.

Going back to school after working in industry for more than 12 years was a big decision for me. I was anxious how I was going to manage family, work and now school together.

But then I thought this is what I want to learn -Time management which is one of the most important attribute of successful leaders. I got myself ready for orientation scheduled during August 22- 24. Orientation started with Sylvia, the director of admissions, giving us statistics about the students enrolled for Class of 2010 and I thought to myself, “Boy, how did I get into this program with such a talented group of people?” I felt really proud and happy. It was rejuvenating to have this feeling of satisfaction with my achievement. I was amazed with the diversity of students and their past backgrounds and accomplishments. It also struck me as interesting that we had, at the oldest and youngest ranges, a 22 year old and 60 year old student in the same class.

I was introduced to my team with whom I will be working for the Fall semester. Fortunately all of us are Seattle-based so we will not have time zone problem. The next two days we had a couple of team-building exercises .With each exercise I could understand how important team-building is, something we often forget in our work environment. Team-building is considered as one of the least important tasks rather than the most critical task for overall project success.

I was also exited to know that we will be working on a Ruby on Rails project in my first semester. I was working in Java for last 12 years. Now definitely I will learn one more technology in Agile fashion.

The first week of class started as soon as I returned to Seattle. Our team had already decided on the schedule of our weekly meetings. I had been more worried about time management but, thank God I didn't have any production problems and could easily spend 20 hours on study, while most importantly I could spent exactly the same amount of time with my wife Puja and daughter Sanskriti.

posted by Vineet Agarwal @ 10:10 AM  2 comments

Monday, September 15, 2008

An Introduction to Truc


My Name is Truc Nguyen and I currently work at Lockheed Martin as a software engineer. I have been full time at LM since January 2008. I graduated from Michigan State University with a BS in Computer Engineering. While in college, I interned twice at Lockheed Martin for different business units. I also held several technical part-time jobs throughout my undergrad for the university, as well as local companies. I decided to participate in the Software Engineering masters program at Carnegie Mellon because I feel that there's so many new things out there to learn about that I'm not being exposed to at work or during undergrad. I think the program will expand my knowledge and help me grow professionally.

Admission
I decided to apply to CMU after an info session held at Lockheed Martin. Several of my co-workers have graduated from the same program and they told me it was a good program. I applied about a month before the official deadline. I must admit that the admission process took some effort. The programming diagnostic took the longest because I actually had to learn about MVC in order to complete the diagnostic. Working full time made the admission process a little harder, but it's a good way to prepare you for balancing school and work in the future. The interview portion went well. I did not feel intimidated and left the interview feeling pretty good.

Orientation
I think the orientation was a great idea. I was able to meet all my classmates and socialize with them. There were several fun team building exercises, such as building the lego castle. The best part about the orientation was that I was able to get to know my teammates for my first course, Foundations. I think this made us stronger as a team because we were able to spend time with each other before the class got underway. The food at the orientation was good too!

First Week of Class:
The first week of class went well. I was surprised by the size of the room....or maybe the amount of people that attended class. Everyone was pretty early class too. There were no real glitches for the people remoting in.

Team Experience
We are now on the third week of class and my team has met several times each week. Everything is going great with the team. We all get along pretty well and know when to have fun, but also when to get serious. I think having a little fun and joking around with each other is key to keeping the team sane when the pressure intensifies.

posted by Truc Nguyen @ 12:36 PM  6 comments

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