"This paper highlights the need for including a thorough course on Software Engineering Tools and Practices in Software Engineering curriculum. Often, institutions include topics on various software engineering tools and practices throughout different courses in a computing curriculum. Based on our experience at Milwaukee School of Engineering, it is more beneficial to have a separate course that introduces the students to common software engineering tools and practices rather than spreading the content over different courses at sophomore and junior undergraduate levels. This paper presents the need and impact of early offering of “Software Engineering Tools and Practices” course on students’ software design skills. The course targets the general software development

lifecycle through the introduction of various tools and practices."--From the paper.