Many science and engineering students at university receive some elementary high-level language programming training at an early stage in their studies. However, few of them get any experience in using other techniques that are in common use in industrial software development and which are generally referred to as software engineering. This paper describes the aims, the content and the results of presenting an intensive two-week software engineering course prepared in industry and given to third-year students in the Department of Applied Physics at the University of Strathclyde.