In discussions about the development and use of computer systems and software products, the term “professional software engineer” is used repeatedly. In the last two decades there has been significant effort devoted to enhancing and advancing the state of professional software engineering (SwE) – new software engineering processes, methods, tools, and practices; creation of a software engineering body of knowledge [1]; development of a code of ethics and professional conduct [2], and software certification and licensing programs [3] . In 1989 the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) of Carnegie Mellon University published a landmark report on graduate education in software engineering [4]. The guidelines in that report were used by several universities in establishing graduate software engineering degree programs that helped address the problem of improving professional software engineering. Since then, software’s scale, complexity, and criticality have accelerated; yet, until recently, no significant effort has been made to revisit and update the original SEI guidelines. This paper discusses two related efforts to provide guidance about improving professional software engineering through graduate education: a project which produced the Graduate Software Engineering 2009 (GSwE2009): Curriculum Guidelines for Graduate Degree Programs in Software Engineering [5] and a current SEI project which is developing a Master of Software Assurance Reference Curriculum (MSwA2010)
