One thing that students find lacking in the university experience is the official ability to get real-world experience without reaching out for extra-curricular opportunities such as internships, research opportunities, etc. Of course it is up to the student how much they want to take from their time in university, from the connections and opportunities presented to them in various ways shapes and forms, but not every student has the motivation or determination to become as associated with their industry as possible through networking events, nor do many students have the time or capability to find and complete internships due to any other obligations in life. These students are thus often starved of the very necessary real-world experience essential to anyone striving to become a professional in their field. ICS 414 was almost the exact kind of thing that I, who can be described as such a student, was looking for.
In ICS 414, you get graded to work with a team of other students on a real software engineering project using the skills you learned from the prerequisite course ICS 314, thus providing the incentive to actually gain experience working in the real world. You learn things that you may not even be able to learn by studying your butt off or taking a billion academic courses simply through the experience. Of course not every course can be like this, as there are things that do need to be taught in a real classroom setting, but I feel like our ICS department in particular could benefit a lot from having more courses like this.