The University of Highlands and Islands is offering companies the opportunity to access students early in their career, enabling them to find both a technical and a cultural match.  This survey is to help us understand the types of opportunities that you might be able to offer our students. 

Are you an employer? Please share your thoughts here.

This industry engagement is part of a new Applied Software Development degree that the University of Highlands and Islands is launching in September 2020.  The degree is aligned to the Graduate Apprenticeship learning outcomes and is focused on the needs of industry both in technical and soft skills.  As a core element of this degree students will be learning in agile teams from the start of their degree on projects related to industry.   To help you understand our students’ capabilities, we have provided some examples of the types of skills each years' graduates will have.

Year 1 students will have foundation level knowledge in a variety of programming languages, software development processes, databases, continuous development practices and will have undertaken a variety of team projects on large code-bases.  They will also have had training in team skills such as communication, negotiation and conflict resolution.  Typical industry skills practised will be understanding large code bases, testing, debugging and creating the build process for an application.

By the end of year 2, students will have built a portfolio covering a variety of technologies, including Web and Mobile applications.  They will have had two years of working in agile teams on fortnight-long sprints, more experience working in teams, and a greater level of technical knowledge.   This year focuses on deepening their programming and application development skills. 

Year 3 students will have developed a wider knowledge of product development and release management.  Students will have completed several larger team projects, and have more confidence deploying products.  Students at this stage will be capable of feature development and capable of joining a development team. They will have experience of sprint planning, and review, and will have spent time reviewing the code of year one and two students. 

Year 4 students will have concentrated on developing a full product through the software product lifecycle and completing their professional development experience and have been exposed to a variety of working practices and cultures.  

We thank you for your time in completing this survey and if you would like to know more about the degree and how your company can get involved, please contact Audrey Decou at audrey.decou@uhi.ac.uk.

Take the survey now.