- are well specified and known to be completable

- start from a blank slate

- produce relatively short programs

- once complete and accepted, will never be run or looked at again

- are required to work individually

Whereas in a real software engineering department:

- goals will be to some extent vague and fluid, may be contradictory => requiring negotiation skills with PM, customers etc.

- you will nearly always be adding to an existing project => requiring ability to read code and perform archaeology

- programs end up huge => requiring schemes for better organisation, modularisation etc

- have a long life and a maintenance overhead => requires design for adaptability

- are required to collaborate => requiring use of a VCS, not having complete freedom to choose tools, techniques like CI and branching for managing incomplete vs complete work fragments.