A Brief History of Senior Project
by Bruce Sanders
Senior Project…two simple words that elicit many memories for practically any CU Computer Science
alumnus who has completed one, whether a member of the most recent class last year or of the first
Senior Project class offered more than 20 years ago. Since the Computer Science Senior Project has been
a critical component of the curriculum of the vast majority of graduates of the department, we thought
I was hired by the department in the spring of 1987 after working in the software development industry
He noted that the first group of computer science undergraduates were about to become seniors. He also
noted that the curriculum required a senior project, which these seniors would need to begin in the fall.
But he envisioned three characteristics of the course that would indeed make it unique:
• Group Projects: The projects would all be completed by teams of students working together,
rather than the individual senior design project typical for the day. Since software was
• Two-Semester Duration: The projects would be completed over the course of an entire academic
year, rather than over the course of a single semester as was, again, typical for the day. This
Professor Fosdick asked me to develop and teach this course, a challenge I gladly accepted. While the
implementation of the course has evolved considerably over the years, Professor Fosdick’s novel ideas—
group projects, two-semester duration and industry sponsors—remain fundamental characteristics of the
course today.
over the years, reflecting the extremely broad spectrum of the discipline of computer science:
• Problem Domains: communications, entertainment, education, medicine, publishing, security,
genetics, weather, business, aviation, energy, gaming, social networking, imaging, networking,
space, mobile computing …
• Technologies: Linux, Java, iPhone OS, C++, Ruby, Perl, Android, CSS, Struts, OpenGL,
Finally, a few numbers that may be of interest:
110… the largest class size (2003-2004)
22… most projects (2003-2004)
15… average number of projects