I played a lot of chess in high school. Not to brag, but I am a bit, I was ranked in the top 10 in this State. There are three parts of the game you study, the Opening Game, the Middle Game, and the End Game. Of course you have to survive the first two to reach “The End Game” but the strategies of each are different. The End Game usually starts with both opponents having very few pieces left. In many cases a queen, a rook or two, and a few pawns will be left with of course the king on both sides. In software engineering, the End Game is also quit different from the Opening Game but they are obviously linked. The End Game includes transiting of the software products to what is called Operation and Maintenance (O&M). This hand-off is not very clear as with the game of Chess. The product has been signed off by the user as being operationally acceptable and most training has been completed. This doesn’t mean every possible future error has been removed as most of you that have used software in your daily life would know that this is very true. A Help Desk is sometimes setup to accept future errors by the O&M Team. A separate system usually exists to replicate the operational system so that testing can be done to identify and fix the errors that are reported. Sometime enhancements will be requested that are minor that will be performed by the O&M Team. This process usually continues indefinitely until a decision is made to replace the system with a new system such as a Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) system or with a redesign and rebuild of the system. Many in software engineering will end up supporting O&M Teams. This can be a very fulfilling and rewarding career with a quicker realization of results than development of a large system taking years to implement.
What will your “End Game” be? As you look at your career and move toward deciding on additional educational options, will your career End Game include extending your education to a Master of Science in Software Engineering (MSSE) from West Virginia University? You can decide because your opponents already have; and, they are already taking classes online, in the evening, through WVU e-Campus.
Dale
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