Careers in Computing - How to Prepare and What to Expect

Dennis J. Frailey, Raytheon Company

Monday, January 31, 2005
5:30pm - SENSQ 5317

Abstract

Many college students concentrate on getting a job instead of preparing for a career. In a rapidly changing field like computing, this can lead to rapid job change, burnout and dissatisfaction. Furthermore, today we hear a lot about outsourcing and some wonder whether there will be computing careers in the future. This talk is based on the premise that the jobs may well change over time but there will definitely be computing careers. The speaker shows how to prepare for a life-long career in computing, covering such topics as where the opportunities are, what it's like to work in the computing field in a large, professionally run computing organization, how the field of computing has changed over the years, how it is likely to change in the future, and what hasn't changed. The talk also addresses what employers look for when hiring people in the computing field and what it takes to have a successful career.

Biography of Speaker

Dr. Dennis J Frailey is a Principal Fellow at Raytheon Company in Plano, Texas and an Adjunct Professor of Computer Science at Southern Methodist University. He also teaches courses in software engineering and computer science for UCLA, National Technological University and the University of Texas Software Quality Institute. At Raytheon, his primary duties are to provide technical and management support to software development projects. This includes writing proposals, negotiating program plans, estimating cost, reducing cycle time, and solving complex computational problems. He is also the master instructor for Raytheon's software project management course and chair of the advanced studies committee, which establishes and manages graduate education programs for engineering employees. In previous assignments he worked as a computer architect, software project manager, head of the software engineering process group, real-time operating system developer, compiler designer, and speechwriter for company executives.

Dennis was one of the original faculty members and developers of the SMU software engineering masters degree program. He is a former vice president of the ACM and former president of the Dallas Association for Software Engineering Excellence. He has over 100 technical publications including articles in three encyclopedias, and has been a keynote speaker at the ACM SIGADA conference, the Conference on Software Engineering Education and Training, Euromicro 2003, and several other events.

Dr. Frailey is vice-chair of the industrial advisory committee of the Texas Board of Professional Engineers and an accreditation visitor and team chair for ABET ? the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology. He holds an M.S. and Ph.D. in computer science from Purdue and a BS in mathematics from Notre Dame.