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Fewer Computer Science Majors

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the who-will-build-the-turing-machines-of-tomorrow dept.

skrysakj writes "USA today reports that there are fewer undergraduate students choosing computer science related majors in the USA. What really woke me up was their statement that only 6% of the worlds engineers are educated in the USA. Before there was a dot-com bubble to burst, I knew lots of *amazing* programmers and IT professionals who had non-IT degrees, so how is this new trend any different than before?"

12 of 901 comments (clear)

  1. Other paths to "computer science" careers by erick99 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I worked for a company that did high-end engineering and programming for the military. They currently have about 120 network engineers, programmers, and other related staff. Maybe 10 of these folks have computer science degrees. However, they *all* had Cisco cerifications and many had MCSE and other certs as well. Perhaps measuring the amount of people getting certified for hardware platforms, languages, etc. might provide more insight into how many people are pursuing computer science type jobs. Also, in this area, if you want to be an engineer or a programmer you might be as well off going to one of the schools that provide training and various certs in 12 month to 24 month time frames. Colleges are not the exclusive path to a career in programming or engineering.

    Cheers,

    Erick

    --
    http://www.busyweather.com/
    1. Re:Other paths to "computer science" careers by GoatChunks · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Up until recently, I would have argued that you don't need a degree of any sort to be a successful software engineer. Me, and about 5 of my peers are/were living proof of that.

      Of the top 10 software engineers in my organization, up until about a year ago, 6 of them had no degree at all. None of the top 5 did. Then suddenly we all hit a brick wall. We were told by our organization that we were pretty much at a standstill in our careers until we got our degrees.

      This is an odd thing for someone who's making $80-$100k to hear. You'd think with all of that experience under our belts nobody would care anymore. But as we try to move up by moving out, we're seeing the same thing. Nobody wants to hire software engineers without a degree.

      None of us are far from getting them, as we all seemed to have the same story. We were plucked out of college by an up-and-rising dot-com a semester or three before graduating. But basically everything is on hold until we get those degrees. After that, or so I'm told, we can write our own tickets.

    2. Re:Other paths to "computer science" careers by betelgeuse68 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I have a BS in CS but I wholeheartedly disagree with you.

      "Sofware engineering" is an oxymoron. You can employ strict process control, aka protocol, but that is not engineering per se. For example, the idea of version control or staging to deploy new web applications, that may be "release engineering" but you are stil talking about setting protocols for pushing files around.

      Today I muse at some of the research interests of some professors I had back in the day, "software engineering." Yeah sure, they changed the software engineering world.

      Given that the number of abstractions the software space allows is infinite (vs. being bound to the physical universe) there is a level of complexity and an opportunity for induction (by drawing from all these abstractions) that ascribing a pithy label such as "software engineering" seems quite moot in my book.

      I might add I spent 2-1/2 years at Microsoft and have moved onto the *NIX space. I've seen both ends of the spectrum and I haven't seen any real notion of software engineering except for ONE small company I had occasion to work at. The problem is that 99.9% of the situations that are cranking out code have no semblance of what was going on there.

      -M

    3. Re:Other paths to "computer science" careers by putaro · · Score: 5, Interesting

      When I was in college I started working as an intern at a local computer manufacturer (this was in the mid-80's when there actually were many real manufacturers). They made a Unix based system, soup-to-nuts (that is, we had our own processor architecture, compilers, and version of BSD Unix). It was basically incredible OJT and I learned fast and before long they had started throwing real projects at me. At one point they asked me to drop out and go to work for them full-time. Things were going on in my life that required more cash than a part-time job would give me, but I figured that finishing my degree wasn't a bad thing, so I cut a deal where I would go full-time working and become a part-time student.

      Shortly afterwards they hired a recent college grad. She was a pretty sharp gal, no doubt about it, but I would say we were pretty much on the same level and I had more experience than her. We got to be good friends and one day the question of salary came up and I discovered that she was making substantially more than I was. I went to my boss and said, "WTF?!" The answer - "You don't have a degree."

      I was glad that I hadn't stopped out, stayed in school and got my degree. About the time I graduated the company went thru a near-death experience, everyone was laid off for about two weeks and I found a new job paying twice as much as I had been making. (After two weeks the company was resurrected and everyone went back to work except for Y.T and one other person)

      I don't bear any animosity towards them for not paying me less for not having a degree, but I am still a little peeved that they tried to get me to drop out of school. Every time I've gone looking for a new job (or venture capital :-) ) since then, I'm glad that I finished my degree since I don't have to start interviews with a song and dance about why I didn't get my degree. Instead, when we talk about education, I say "Yup, been there, done that, let's talk about something more interesting".

    4. Re:Other paths to "computer science" careers by AB3A · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Speaking as one who has a degree, my response to you is BALDERDASH!

      Some people are simply very well organized and know what they're doing even before they get to college. I was one of them. My degree is in electrical engineering. But most of what I learned, I got from building ham radio gear.

      Likewise, most of what I know from computer science is from playing with it as it evolved from mainframes to the S100 CP/M systems, to early versions of DOS and so on and so forth.

      Yes, I have a degree that says I know something. Yes, I did learn some useful mathematics. However the rest of the experience was really OJT.

      The problem is getting an employer to recognize and reward such experience and independent learning. We are stuck in a society where Human Resources maggots label us by virtue of what scouting badges we have achived --not what we can actually do or understand.

      And then so many turn around and wonder at the mediocrity of today's graduates...

      --
      Nearly fifty percent of all graduates come from the bottom half of the class!
  2. Jobs and such by Stevyn · · Score: 5, Interesting

    After all the flood of comp sci majors realized they couldn't make $150,000 with just a degree and no ambition or geeky desire of computers, people stopped choosing that major. A lot of schools were rushing them through and dumbed down the curriculum to get them through. People just chose computer science not because they liked computers, but they thought they'd have an easy job that paid well. The job market became flooded with these people who could maybe use windows and simple programming, but not much else. I've read accounts on slashdot of people saying how many people in their classes could barely use a CLI. I'm happy there are less comp sci majors, it takes away the needless competition facing the good ones.

  3. Re:Not true geeks... by jbrocklin · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm going into my senoir year in CS this fall at a university who has their CS degree in the engineering college. I help out with some of the college recruiting things and you wouldn't believe the number of people who want to come to a CS degree for game programming. Just because there isn't the big $$ involved all the time doesn't mean people are still coming to CS degrees for the wrong reasons.

    Those that do come into the program for this usually end up dropping out or switching to a non-engineering major because they want to PLAY games all the time and not do the stuff like algorithm design and analysis that the CS degree requires.

  4. Re:Not true geeks... by thafreak · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Actually, from talking to everyday "non-geek" people, I find that they're all still under the impression that there is alot of money to be made in CS. So I bet the people leaving the field ARE the real geeks who love computers. I bet they're all waking up and realizing that if they want to survive (and afford their expensive habit if you will), they need to get a real job that pays...
    I'd venture to say the poeple sticking with it are still mostly money grubbers who are going to have a very surprising wake up call when they graduate.
    Maybe all the real geeks are going over to MIS...anyone compare the decline in CS to the numbers from business schools???
    I'd like to see them...

  5. Degrees vs Non-Degrees by Jinsaku · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I work for a start-up that has a team of 4 developers. In skill order and value to the company, they are:

    Developer A - Architect, super-badass.. self-taught, went to MIT for 1 year but has no college degree. 2nd Youngest of bunch. (late 20s)

    Developer B - Me, Senior Developer, pretty good all-around coder and designer, went to college for 2 years but didn't do much with it and has no degree. Youngest of bunch. (mid 20s)

    Developer C - Developer, Masters in Psychology and some other discipline of that type (non-comp related). Pretty good developer, but not great. (2nd oldest of bunch) (Early 30s)

    Developer D - Junior developer, Masters in Computer Science.. can't grasp anything bigger than a small feature, all code has to be reviewed by someone higher up. (oldest of bunch) (Late 30s)

    What does this tell me? Experience and work-skill are a *lot* more important than degrees. This is just one small example, but most every company I've ever worked for, the super-badasses never had degrees, and were all either self-taught or had a little bit of college, and tended to eventually rise to the top.

    --
    -- Jinsaku
  6. 6%? Thats more then what I expected. by blanks · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What do you expect from a country where education and intelligence is not a "High priority"? Education is competition, meaning tomorrow's educated students, who become business men could be your next big competitor. And as everyone knows in the USA people don't matter, Big business does. Yes business's would not be around if people couldn't buy their products, so they (we) get paid just enough to buy their products. And for those who can't afford it, that's what credit cards are for. We are losing a battle, not just with the rest of the world dealing with education, business, ethics(?) but a battle of bettering ourselves and giving our children a chance to survive in the future.

    --
    TruePunk | Games
  7. Re:Kind of amusing, in a sad way ... by nate1138 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Don't discount the online schools so quickly. I have been a programmer for about 10 years, and did not have a degree. To advance into management, a degree was pretty much a requirement. For somebody like me, Phoenix was ideal. I don't have the time to go to a campus (not to mention that there isn't a good school near me), and I really have no interest in doing so. At the same time, I needed to finish my degree to advance my career. University of Phoenix fit the bill nicely. I am about to complete a degree in MIS, and that, coupled with a decade of hard software development experience puts me in a good position for the future. While I agree that simply having a degree doesn't qualify you for "IT Management", I don't think that it is fair to single out online programs. Traditional 4 year brick and mortar institutions turn out just as many (more, probably) clueless wanabees.

    --
    Where's my lobbyist? Right here.
  8. Because they're intelligent. by Gannoc · · Score: 5, Interesting


    Computer Science is a facinating field of study, and a great hobby. Its a rotten career.

    Its like being the high school nerd for the rest of your life. There are very few companies out there that truly respect their programmers, and with outsourcing becoming more and more popular, that trend isn't going anyway anytime soon.

    College Students: It may sound GREAT to have a swell job where you get free coke and code all day. Thats because you associate coding and programing with learning and new discoveries. Every programming project, every new linux distrubution, every class has been something new and interesting. When you hit the real world, that ends. It becomes the same old shit everyday. Yes, you can learn on your own, but that isn't your job. Sure, i'm "learning" C# .NET now for my job, but I'm an experienced programmer. Its just the same shit with different syntax. Maybe it will let me do my job easier. I'm not excited about it.

    I myself am halfway through my masters in a different field so I can change my career. Do you really think you'll be excited about working on version 6 of the same product you've been working on for 5 years? Do you think you'll be able to switch jobs at a whim when you get bored?

    I make it a part of my life to talk young people out of entering technical fields. Maybe when our society starts respecting us, instead of treating us like we're a bunch of strange teenagers, i'll change my mind.

    BTW: I've made my own situation better by demanding to do other tasks at work, and again, working towards a new career in my spare time. I see so many programmers hit their early 30s and really hate their jobs. Think before you choose a career with computers.