Carnegie Mellon University

Why Study Software Engineering?

Software Engineering is the heart of the technology-driven transformation of our world today. Research in Software Engineering studies how we build software that repairs itself, intelligently adapts to a changing world, and is trustworthy in a world full of dangerous situations and adversaries. It explores how to understand privacy in a world where everything seems to be shared and how to create a world where everyone can harness the power of programming.

A Ph.D. in Software Engineering opens a number of exciting career paths:

  • A university professor is a great career for those who love to teach, and who are looking for the opportunity to do independent research that impacts -- or even founds -- an entire subfield of software engineering.
  • An industrial researcher offers the opportunity to focus full-time on research, working with other Ph.D.s on new ideas and feeding them directly into products that impact the world.
  • An entrepreneur taking ideas from the research world and working in a startup to create new categories of products that transform society.