Mental health and well-being are major concerns in higher education and professional fields such as software engineering, yet are often overlooked in curricula. This paper describes our approach to include mental health, well-being, and sustainability in software engineering education in two ways: (1) well-being-focused software projects that ask students to design technical solutions or research addressing mental health and sustainability or societal challenges, and (2) brief classroom interventions such as short reflective discussions and team-building activities. We argue that this combination can help students see software engineering more broadly while creating healthier learning environments. Our analysis of reflections from 60 students found several positive outcomes: students gained a more human-centred perspective, had more team discussions about mental health, and began to see well-being as inspiration for using software to benefit society and individuals rather than merely as a technical or business tool. By combining technical skills with awareness of well-being, we argue that software engineering education can prepare future developers to be both skilled programmers and responsible professionals who care about human well-being.
翻译:心理健康和福祉是高等教育及软件工程等专业领域的重要关切,却常被课程体系所忽视。本文描述了我们将心理健康、福祉与可持续性融入软件工程教育的两种途径:(1)以福祉为核心的软件项目,要求学生设计解决心理健康、可持续性或社会挑战的技术方案或研究;(2)短暂的课堂干预,如简短的反思性讨论和团队建设活动。我们认为,这种结合有助于学生更广泛地理解软件工程,同时营造更健康的学习环境。对60名学生反思的分析发现了若干积极成果:学生获得了更以人为本的视角,增加了关于心理健康的团队讨论,并开始将福祉视为利用软件造福社会与个人的灵感来源,而非仅仅将其作为技术或商业工具。通过将技术技能与福祉意识相结合,我们主张软件工程教育能够培养未来的开发者,使其既成为熟练的程序员,又成为关注人类福祉的负责任的专业人士。