The goal of the Master of Science program in Software Engineering is to train individuals who can successfully design, develop, implement, integrate, and maintain software and software related products. Software engineering has been defined as "the establishment and use of sound engineering principles in order to obtain economical software that is reliable and works efficiently on real machines." Although many more comprehensive definitions have been proposed, all reinforce the requirement for engineering discipline in software development.

Computer software engineers apply the principles and techniques of computer science, engineering, and mathematical analysis to the evaluation, design, development, testing, and maintenance of the software systems. Software engineers are involved in all aspects of software development; namely, software project management, system specifications, requirement analysis, design techniques, documentation, coding, testing, maintenance, quality assurance, and configuration management.

It is important to stress that the software engineering program at St. Mary's University does not focus on providing students with a large repertoire of programming skills that emphasize a particular language syntax or semantic. Coding is only one phase of the software life cycle. The goal of our Software Engineering program is to give students the knowledge and skills necessary to develop and manage large-scale software systems with the primary focus on quality, reliability, and maintainability. The emphasis is on the organizational structures, development processes, analysis and modeling techniques, design methodologies, documentation standards, quality and controls.