CS 399

CS 399 Cooperative Professional Experience is only offered on an arranged basis.

This page contains the model syllabus for for the course.

General Information

Course website - https://cs.indstate.edu/wiki/index.php/CS_399

Your Instructor

Jeff Kinne, jkinne@cs.indstate.edu
Office: Myers Technology Center, 301D and in Microsoft Teams, phone 812-237-3394
Instructor Office Hours: by appointment for this course

Lecture

Lecture: meetings are arranged

Prerequisites - participation in Professional Practice Program and permission of supervising professor.

Required text None.

Course Description and Content

Course Description

The official description of this course from the catalog is

"Coordinated computer science work experience in business/industry. A comprehensive written report of the experience, including documented samples of software developed by the student, is required."

Experience working on projects outside of the classroom can be a key step in a student’s development. The work of the student will be coordinated with their advisor, and a project report will be given at the conclusion of the experience. Students who do not arrange for outside experiences will be given the option to perform a project within the department to satisfy the requirement.

Learning Outcomes

• Experience searching for jobs, preparing application materials, applying for jobs.
• Experience working within a company and with others - being professional, having good communication.
• Reflection on how which course content and skills were most useful in the position.
• Presentation skills.

Administrative Information

International Student Visa Requirements International students have restrictions as to where and when an internship can be performed. The following restrictions apply.

• Must be registered full time (12 credits) unless it is a semester break (summer session).
• Work 20 hours or less per week during the regular academic term (fall and spring). Can work more during the summer.
• In order to do an internship experience off campus, the following additional restrictions apply to international students.
  • Must be registered for CS 399 for 3 credits.
  • Have been a full-time student for at least one academic year.

Credit Hours To be counted as an internship for X credit hours, students should work at least 30*X hours in the internship. For a 3 credit hour internship, the student should normally work at least 90 hours. The type of work must be approved by the student’s advisor ahead of time.

Final Report and Presentation Students who complete CS 399 are required to submit a report at the conclusion of the internship experience, and are required to offer to give a short presentation to the department about their experience (especially in relation to computer science skills used or developed during the experience).

Nature of Work For an internship experience to be approved, the work must be directly related to computer science. Positions that entail programming are normally approved. Positions that do not entail programming but instead involve systems administration are considered on a case by case basis.

Internships within the Department For those who want to take CS 399 for credit by doing work inside of the department (normally unpaid), the following are some options that are sometimes approved.

• Running workshops on topics not covered in courses for CS students. Topics could include a particular programming language, development environment, algorithms, useful tools, etc. The topic must be approved by the instructor.
  • Some current options to explore - https://www.google.com/edu/cs/
  • Programming in environments not always offered in our courses - .Net, Java/Android, Objective C/Swift iOS, R
  • Using/configuring systems that are of current interest - Hadoop,
  • Programming/software open-source toolkits - machine learning, game creation
• Volunteering in the Unix programming lab to keep it open and maintain the machines.
• Running discussion/problem sessions for introductory CS courses.
• Helping with grading and assignments in a particular CS course. Note that assisting with grading requires approval by the department chairperson and a completed FERPA form on file.

Presentation

For the presentation to the department after your internship is complete, you should include the following information.

• Position information - company, job title, job description.
  • If possible, include a link to the job posting online. You should save the job posting when you are applying so that you will be able to share it even it is no longer available online.
• Applying for the position - information about the steps in securing the position - what types of interviews, calls, etc.
  • Include some details about interview questions at each stage. If possible, give specific examples; if not, at least give a sense for the types of questions and how you prepared.
  • How did you find the position, what was your job search like?
• Job/experience summary - what was your daily experience like, did you work in a team (and if so how was that), what main project did you work on, what tools/languages did you use, what skills/knowledge did you gain on the job, anything you wish you had experience with more before starting
  • If possible give a demo of your work environment (what the tools/languages look like when open, etc.).
• Advice to other students based on your experience - in terms of finding positions and in terms of preparing for them.

You should plan on your presentation being 20 minutes or so, and be ready to answer any questions.

Grading and Assignments

The students of this course have the following responsibilities: coordinate with advisor and project supervisor, maintain communication with advisor during the experience, and submit a report to the advisor at the conclusion of the experience.

The course is graded pass/fail.

As part of the experience, the student should develop a resume and apply for a job. Students performing an internship experience within the department will apply to work on an area they are interested in. As part of the internal application process, students will be interviewed and evaluated by the course instructor.

Students are required to give a presentation to the department on their internship experience. The presentation should include at least the following elements. For each of these, you should include any advice you have to other students as they apply for or start internships/jobs.

• About the position
• Company, job description
• Applying for the position
• How did you find the position?
• Job posting - keep a copy to save and show during the presentation.
• Interview process - how many interviews, what were they like?
• Starting the position
• Was there training? What was it like getting started? Did you have a mentor?
• Job/experience summary
• Summarize what kind of work you did by the end.
• If allowed by the employer, include screenshot(s) of your development environment(s), list of software used for development, screenshot(s) of demo(s) of your work.
• Your background - skills/knowledge that you feel you were well prepared.
• Your background - skills/knowledge you were not well prepared for.
• Improvement - skills/knowledge you improved through the experience.
• Follow up - has the company asked you to continue in the future or apply for a full time position when you graduate?
• Closing / additional thoughts

You should share your presentation with your supervisor at the company and ask whether they would want any of the slides/information to be redacted (a) when presenting to the department, (b) when posting the presentation internally, (c) for posting the presentation if publicly available.

CS-Specific Items

This section contains items that are generally the same for all CS courses (and in particular those taught by this instructor).

CS Course Policies

Note that this course follows all standard CS course policies. See http://cs.indstate.edu/info/policies.html for details.

Lab Help

Please see https://cs.indstate.edu/wiki/index.php/Unix_Lab_and_Help for information about lab help.

Course Announcements

Announcements regarding the course will be made both during class and via email to your @sycamores.indstate.edu email address. You should regularly check this email account or have it forwarded to an account that you check regularly. You can set the account to forward by logging into your indstate.edu email online (if you aren't able to find the option, try a different browser or search online for things like - outlook online forward email setting).

Classroom conduct

You may not use cell phones, iPods/music players, etc. during class. You should be civil and respectful to both the instructor and your classmates, and you should arrive to class a few minutes before the scheduled lecture so you are ready for lecture to begin on time. You may use your computer during class if you are using it to follow along with the examples that are being discussed. You should avoid spending time on email, Facebook, work on other courses, etc. during the lecture for this class (be fully present wherever you are, make the most of each experience).

Academic Integrity

Please follow these guidelines to avoid problems with academic misconduct in this course:

Homework: You may discuss the homework assignments, but should solve and finish them on your own. To make sure you are not violating this, if you discuss with someone, you should DESTROY any work or evidence of the discussion, go your separate ways, SPEND at least an hour doing something completely unrelated to the assignment, and then you should be able to RECREATE the program/solution on your own, then turn that in. If you cannot recreate the solution on your own, then it is not your work, and you should not turn it in.

Note on sources: if you use some other source, the web or whatever, you better cite it! Not doing so is plagiarism.

Exams: This should be clear no cheating during exams. Each instructor has different rules for what is allowed on exams in terms of notes, etc. If not noted otherwise, you should assume that a quiz or exam is closed notes, no computer, no calculator.

Projects: You should not copy from the Internet or anywhere else. The project should be your own work. It will be fairly obvious to me if you do copy code from the Internet, and the consequences will be at the least a 0 on the project. If cheating is observed, you will at the least receive a 0 for the assignment (and may receive an F for the course), and I will file a Notification of Academic Integrity Violation Report with Student Judicial Programs, as required by the university's policy on Academic Integrity. A student who is caught cheating twice (whether in a single course or different courses) is likely to be brought before the All University Court hearing panel, which can impose sanctions up to and including suspension/expulsion. See http://www.indstate.edu/sjp/docs/code.pdf and http://www.indstate.edu/academicintegrity/ for more information.

Please ask the instructor if you have doubts about what is considered cheating in this course.

Office hours (using Teams)

Office hours will be through Microsoft Teams by default. If you would like to meet in person you should reserve an appointment using http://cs.indstate.edu/jkinne-meeting to reserve an in person meeting with Jeff Kinne. I am normally in my office during my listed office hours, but by making an appointment you can be more certain. For meeting through Teams, you should start Teams in your browser or start the application. You should be logged in using your ISU credentials. Once you have Teams open you can message me to ask me questions or to ask to talk. We can use Teams to message (better than emailing back and forth repeatedly if you have questions about something that you just want to write about) or to talk and share screens (e.g., to take a look at your code). I normally have Teams open on my computer all of the time, including during my office hours. During my office hours I will normally reply right away; at other times I will reply when I get a chance.

Canvas

The course has a canvas site. Click https://indstate.instructure.com/ to go to canvas. You should see this course listed under your courses for the current term. If you don't you may need to click on the Courses icon and then click the "All courses" link. The canvas site is used for giving you your grades, for quizzes/exams, and for getting to online lectures (which are done using Zoom). Announcements will be sent through canvas and to your university email. Links and such will be kept on this website.

ISU Required Syllabus Items

The items in this section are required and are the same for every ISU course.

COVID-19 Information

Information specific to CS courses - Start of Term Announcements

Standard ISU language required in all syllabi (read this all once, then skim for your other courses)...

Students are expected to adhere to course attendance policies, as stated in the course syllabus. Documented COVID-related absences will be treated like any other serious medical issue. Following University policy, students with a documented, serious medical issue must contact the Office of the Dean of Students for assistance. The Office of the Dean of Students will supply documentation for faculty. Students with a documented serious medical issue should not be penalized and will be given a reasonable chance to complete exams or assignments. Once notification is made, faculty will make reasonable efforts to accommodate the student’s absence and will communicate that accommodation directly to the student. Please note that faculty are not required to accommodate a serious medical issue with virtual content options, like streaming or recorded lectures. To avoid the potential of missing significant class time, students are strongly encouraged to receive the COVID vaccination that has been made available on campus. For more information about the vaccines or to find a vaccination site, go to: https://ourshot.in.gov. The ISU Health Center also administers COVID-19 vaccines by appointment.

Students should contact the Office of the Dean of Students with questions by calling 812-237-3829.

The information provided in this section of the syllabus is subject to modification based on guidance by public health authorities. Changes to Covid-related policies or updated information will, as always, be posted on the ISU website and communicated in multiple ways.

Special Needs / Disability Services

Standard ISU language required in all syllabi...

Indiana State University recognizes that students with disabilities may have special needs that must be met to give them equal access to college programs and facilities. If you need course adaptations or accommodations because of a disability, please contact us as soon as possible in a confidential setting either after class or in my office. All conversations regarding your disability will be kept in strict confidence. Indiana State University's Student Support Services (SSS) office coordinates services for students with disabilities: documentation of a disability needs to be on file in that office before any accommodations can be provided. Student Support Services is located on the lower level of Normal Hall in the Center for Student Success and can be contacted at 812-237-2700, or you can visit the ISU website under A-Z, Disability Student Services and submit a Contact Form. Appointments to discuss accommodations with SSS staff members are encouraged.

Once a faculty member is notified by Student Support Services that a student is qualified to receive academic accommodations, a faculty member is obligated to provide or allow a reasonable classroom accommodation under ADA.

Disclosures Regarding Sexual Misconduct

Standard ISU language required in all syllabi...

Indiana State University Policy 923 strictly prohibits discrimination on the basis of: age, disability, genetic information, national origin, pregnancy, race/color, religion, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, veteran status, or any other class protected by federal and state statutes in ISU programs and activities or that interferes with the educational or workplace environment.

Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972 prohibits discrimination based on sex, including sexual harassment. Sexual harassment includes quid pro quo harassment, unwelcome verbal or physical conduct, sexual assault, dating violence, domestic violence, and stalking.

If you witness or experience any forms of the above discrimination, you may report to:

Office: Equal Opportunity & Title IX; (812) 237-8954; Rankin Hall, Room 426
Email: ISU-equalopportunity-titleix@mail.indstate.edu
Online: https://cm.maxient.com/reportingform.php?IndianaStateUniv&layout_id=10

Disclosures made to the following confidential campus resources will not be reported to the Office of Equal Opportunity and Title IX:
ISU Student Counseling Center: (812) 237-3939; Gillum Hall, 2nd Floor
Victim Advocate: (812) 237-3829; HMSU 7th Floor
UAP Clinic/ISU Health Center: (812) 237-3883; 567 N. 5th Street