The Changing Face of Computer Science

For another facet of CS education, HangingChad writes "MSNBC is carrying an interesting article on the changing demographics of IT workers and education. The upshot of the article is that older, working adults are taking IT related courses for advancement while comp sci continues to slide as a career choice in college, which the researchers in the article attribute to perception issues." From the article: "In fact, as the technology-dependent United States struggles to stay ahead of the Bangalores of the world, the Higher Education Institute at the University of California-Los Angeles found significantly fewer students at the college level -- 60 percent fewer -- wanted to study computer science in 2004 as opposed to the year 2000. "

Comments

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[fembots]

I thought education and career are like stock exchange, you should always buy low and sell high, but most people tend to buy high and sell low.

Now that everyone's talking about CS skill shortage, this is the worst time to start studying CS, because everyone will be doing the exact same thing, just like they did on "multimedia" courses in 1998/1999.

If you started studying CS right after the dot-com bubble burst (around 2000, "worst" time to get into IT), you will be very popular right about now.

Overall?

[CypherXero]

At my university, there's The College of Computer Science, and under that, you can major in CS (Computer Science), IT (Information Technology) or IS (Information Systems). So is it all of the included majors affected, or is it just the CS majors that are affected?

Like that is a shock.....

[Nagatzhul]

With all the jobs being shipped out of the United States and reports of massive lay offs in the IT sector. The recent announcment by HP is a perfect example of this.

Why invest in a career where you have little confidence of supporting yourself?

Re:Like that is a shock.....

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Funny how successful people have a chronic case of good luck.

Funny how you rewrite history to suit the outcome. OF COURSE SUCCESSFULL PEOPLE SEEM TO HAVE A CHRONIC CASE OF GOOD LUCK- because the people who have bad luck aren't successfull.

In reality- when people have actually done studies on this- what you really have is two main things going on. Successfull children of successfull parents are usually successfull because of networking- a birthright. Successfull children of unsuccessfull parents are gamblers- risk takers who lose on about 2/3rds of what they try- but they keep trying and never quit, and thus become successfull because they raise the number of times they try. Unsuccessfull children of successfull parents are idiots for the most part- skilless wonders who never learned to fend for themselves to begin with. Unsuccessfull children of unsuccessfull parents have risk adversion tendencies- they want to be "safe" rather than "rich", and since they don't have the opportunities of the upper class.

But I've also seen successfull people make mistakes- and end up bankrupt- so don't get to cocky.

The brutal truth is,

[pair-a-noyd]

"significantly fewer students at the college level -- 60 percent fewer -- wanted to study computer science in 2004 as opposed to the year 2000. "

most of these younger folks think they were born gifted hotshots. Most of them think they don't need no steenkin education because they already know it all..

There is a large number of young people that grew up with computers, someone 20 years old now has probably had a home computer all his life. Someone old enough to be his parent did not have a home computer when they were his age.

Look at the job market

[Launch]

As a recent graduate (okay, I graduated over a year ago) and as someone who works at a software company, I have to say that if I could do it all over again I'd do anything but CS. Most universities offer MIS programs, etc, that will put you into the tech field without nessicarly being a programmer, etc. But, heck, if I had skipped the four years of college I'd probably be a junior manager at walmart by now.

With jobs going overseas, and the supply of programmers heavily outweighing the demand, I don't see any reason for anyone to be intrested in CS at all.

When I hear Gates talk about lack of tallent within the US, I really have to say "who cares". The bottom line is that less than 1% of CS majors are going to be of the caliber of programmer that Gates is talking about, but what about the rest of us 99%ers? We have the joy of fighting tooth and nail for a job, then we have the joy of not getting the dream salaries that were touted in the 90s, and then to top it off we get to fight off competition for overseas that can do our work at a third of the cost because of living expenses overseas.

Back in the day it use to be cool to be a programmer. Now when someone says that I have to feel a little bit sorry for me.

Re:Best people and the value of money

[dgatwood]

Agreed. The general consensus is that once your basic needs are met, changes in salary don't mean as much as more free time. Right now, I'd definitely choose more free time, given a choice. On the other hand, I'm not a new college grad, and therefore my opinion is irrelevant. :-)

I'm not saying that money is the primary concern for the best and brightest. I'm saying that it isn't hard to imagine a lot of very bright college students seeing news of layoffs, outsourcing, unemployment, and high housing costs in the Bay Area and saying "life's too short".

The problem is that the numbers I've seen in the news for starting salaries in the industry would be... really tight, even without saving money for retirement, starting a family, etc. I lived on a similar salary six years ago working at a start-up. Money was a little tight, but I wasn't paying electrical bills, lived in (relatively cheap) campus housing, and already owned a vehicle that my parents were paying off and insuring for me. For most folks, it would have been more than just a little tight. That's why I got my Master's degree. It paid for itself in the first year. Had I not done that, I'd probably still be seriously struggling. (Hint to CS students... count on six years.)

Since I was a new college grad, though, the cost of living has gone up by about 19.4% (3% annually, six years, compounded annually), but the starting salary has increased by only a fraction of that. Now maybe those numbers are wrong, but if I were in school right now and seeing those numbers and looking at the cost of living in the SF Bay Area (or even apartment rentals), I'd be seriously thinking twice about whether it was the direction I wanted to go.

In fact, I did exactly that six years ago. I had a choice between choosing TV production as a career and choosing CS (double major). I even won some pretty significant scholarships (including one national scholarship) in the TV side of things. Money didn't choose my career arbitrarily, but I looked at average starting salaries of $16k a year in the TV industry, and it did sway me to an alternative that I also enjoyed.

The thought of possibly having to spend ten years at near minimum wage working myself up to a wage that would pay the bills just didn't appeal to me. CS was -so- much better financially that it made the decision between those two career paths rather easy.

I see CS starting down that path. It's early enough in the decline (unlike the TV industry) that it can be turned around. It's just a question of deciding which is more important: continuing to be an innovative industry that brings in the best and the brightest... or a temporary boost in a company's bottom line. Right now, the smart companies are investing in the future, but the industry as a whole must follow in their example or we'll continue to see news stories about the decline in the quantity and quality of CS grads.