U.S. Students Shun Computer Science, Engineering

n9fzx writes "The San Jose Mercury News reports on a study by the Computing Research Association which finds that 'Undergraduates in U.S. universities are starting to abandon their studies in computer technology and engineering amid widespread worries about the accelerating pace of offshoring by high-technology employers.' Enrollment in those fields has dropped by 19% in the past year alone." Update: 03/24 23:40 GMT by CN : jlechem wrote in with a related story: "Wired News has a story about how American companies are outsourcing not because of cheap labor but because of the American school system not being up to snuff. In a report by the AeA, they contend that American schools don't teach enough math and science anymore."

Comments

On the bright side,

[Stephen Samuel]

The computer Science Facility won't be bulging at the seams any more, and the people going in will be mostly people who are genuinely intereested in the computer science field.

This might actually result in a higher quality crop of students in the next few years.

Re:On the bright side,

[Rick and Roll]

I sure hope that's the case. I am about to graduate with a Bachelors degree in Computer Science and am taking my Capstone course. Two of the four people on our team actually know how to program, and the others don't. I just had a guy in the class with me (on another team) ask me how to check that the last four letters of a string are .xml in Java. He had about five or six nested loops (and he's on his sixth year of C. S.)

I also had a senior C. S. student ask me how to remove a directory in UNIX. Both she and her teammate trying to help her had no concept of present working directory. You can only imagine how ignorant they are about networking, compilers, etc.

We had two classes, Algorithms and Operating Systems, where our longest projects were two pages of really easy code (e. g. the Bounding Buffer problem with threads). Only once in Algorithms did we have to use loop invariants to show that our code worked, or compile and test our code. A lot of this was due to how little grasp of understanding these students have.

I do not, when I get in the field, want to work with people who are this incompetent.

Don't know the new CS majors here well enough to see if they're genuinely interested, but I hope to God they are.

Re:On the bright side,

[doktor-hladnjak]

The computer Science Facility won't be bulging at the seams any more

This is something the article doesn't really mention at all. From the late 90s into the peak of the bubble (and then really even a bit after its collapse), enrollments skyrocketed. The author makes it sound like a 19% drop is the end of the field as we know it. I don't know how much enrollments increased during the boom, but I'd hazard to guess that there may still be more people studying CS now than in the mid-90s.

Re:Excellent

[Unnngh!]

Do you need a CS degree to write a new module for an accounting application, to write a chat program in VB, etc.? Probably not.

Should you need one to get a job doing this type of thing? Definitely not.

Should you need a CS degree to design automobile software, space shuttle software, large distributed programs, the next generation networking protocols, etc.? Yes, but you should probably have a masters/phd or a lot of proven experience in addition.

The purpose of a CS degree has been lost on me personally, I don't think most major institutions are providing what anyone really wants or needs.

Re:Maybe because the programs are crappy...

[Lictor]

>A lot of this stuff has nothing to do with what i consider computer science.

Then you, sir, clearly haven't the foggiest clue what computer science is.

>(I have been programming for 10 years).

Programming is to Computer Science as scrubbing test tubes is to Molecular Biology. How many molecular biology majors pride themselves on how many years they've been cleaning the dishes after dinner?

>Why do I need to prove that the PowerSet of Set A
>intersection Set B is the same as the PowerSet of
>A intersection the PowerSet of B (P(A inter B) =
>P(A) inter P(B)).

Because... much of Computer Science *is* mathematics... and if you don't understand basic set theory, you haven't a prayer of surviving since all of modern mathematics is based on set theory.

You are of the, depressingly common, opinion that computer science is about writing programs. For the last and final time: this is wrong. Period.

Programming is a trade skill. Like plumbing. Its a skilled trade, to be sure, but its a TRADE... it is not a science.

Don't blame your computer science program because *you* are massively ignorant of the subject in which you have chosen to major. This is your own fault, not theirs. They are trying to teach you science, when all you want to learn is a trade.

Drop out, and go to one of the many fine trade schools out there that will teach you "C++ programming in 6 months". If all you want to learn is the craft of programming, you are simply going to be miserable in a computer *science* program.

Its rather analogous to taking a degree in Physics to learn how to operate a microwave oven.

Re:pessimism

[zymurgyboy]

Grandparent, don't listen to the parent. Study what you find interesting. Then find a job and adapt what you enjoyed learning about to the job you get.

You might get a job as a patent lawyer, where you'll have to adapt what you learned in your comp. sci. cirriculum to your real-life job.

I majored in math and work in IT now. I shunned all comp sci offerings while I was at school, but I loved math while I was there. I've worked at aquiring skills a typical comp sci person has straight out of school, but you know what, I've got a big advantage over a lot of them because of skills I learned studying math, logic and basic problem solving. Basic abstract reasoning skills are far more important than specialized knowledge.

I'd do it exactly the same way if I had to do it again.

This is the problem with IT anyway, and probably the reason for this. Too many people have been studying it because they can make bundles of cash when they get done.

Bzzzzt. Wrong!!! Do what you love, the money will come. Anyway, it won't matter so much if it doesn't as long as you love what you're doing.

If people are flocking away from engineering and comp sci in droves, I say GOOD, since they're probably the ones pricipally motivated by the perceived economic advantage of it anyway! Maybe we'll get someone to come out with a degree in one or the other that cares about something other than the paycheck for a change.

Education should be and end in itself, not a means to an end.

Re:pessimism

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got a big advantage over a lot of them because of skills I learned studying math, logic and basic problem solving. Basic abstract reasoning skills are far more important than specialized knowledge.

Logic, abstract reasoning, problem solving, and mathematics are the "specialized knowledge" taught in CS. Heck, CS is basically a branch of applied mathematics.

I think you're mistaking CS with Software Engineering. Either that, or your uni's "comp sci offerings" were really Software Engineering courses in disguise, which isn't all that uncommon, unfortunately.