CS Degrees Low in 2007 But Bouncing Back

An anonymous reader writes "The number of undergraduate computer science degrees awarded last year hit a new low with the Class of 2007. The degrees awarded, 8,000, as tracked by the Computing Research Association, is only half of what it was five years ago. In 2003-04 — the high point of this decade — 14,185 students were awarded bachelors degrees in computer science from the 170 PhD granting universities tracked by the CRA. That said, after a decade of severe declines, the number of students at top universities declaring themselves as computer science majors is finally seeing an increase. Though it's only a small increase, it's an increase nonetheless. Experts attribute the shift to changes in job market, and also to changes in curriculum and the marketing of comp sci programs."

Comments

Re:Frankly....

[jawtheshark]

Because most of them thought they were capable because they can use a computer decently like most people their age.

However, that's just a phenomenon from the last five years or so (when computers started to be cheap and graphical user interfaces were stable). I say five years, because Windows 95 came out in (duh) late 1995 and people needed to grew up with it to think "they could operate a computer". Someone going to college in 1995, having computer experience would know the pre-95 days. I remember a girl (!) in my first year. She had never turned on a computer in her whole life, but was mathematically inclined and interested in computers. She graduated the same year I did (means: without failing) and she did that magna cum laude. That was possible back then. (It's just too bad, I never noticed that she had cast an eye on me...)

Now, I hear adults (+40yo) say their kids "understand computers" and I get batshit mad about that. They don't understand anything, their computers are infested with spyware, they don't understand the difference between RAM and harddisk, they just know how to install World of Warcraft and God help them if someone disabled Autorun. I've been a highschool "computer science" teacher. It's disheartening.

Interest in Web 2.0 vs Web 1.0

[heroine]

The prospect of a career migrating web scripts between Python, Ruby, & J2EE definitely doesn't have the appeal that 1st generation dot coms offered. It's not the student interest as much as the fact that Web 2.0 isn't the completely new territory that Web 1.0 was.

There might be new interest from the latest surge of robotics, but that's mainly done in Europe & once Dubya is gone, there won't be any more military robots h.e.r.e...

Silicon Valley is slow & stodgy about new territory. It's going to be Web scripts for a long time.

Re:Frankly....

[Orion Blastar]

I started Computer Science in 1986 myself.

So much of the CS market is flooded with wantabes and posers that barely know how to use a computer, much less program or troubleshoot one. I recall working for a community college in 1990 in one of their computer labs, and people with BS, MBS, and PHDs in Computer Science went to the community college to learn what they missed in Four year college and I worked as a tutor and educational assistant for some of them. I also subbed for the debugger as she didn't know C, Pascal, BASIC, Assembly as well as I did and I got the hard to debug programs.

Businesses went from hiring programmers like me who do quality control built into design, towards hiring kids right out of college with no experience who can write programs "good enough" to work and get the job done even if it crashes their servers a dozen times a day. Microsoft certification doesn't work either as they earn it and learned the answers on the Internet and got certified anyway.

While I earned A's and B's, and eventually earned all A's and graduated with honors, a lot of these other CS majors barely graduated but know how to schmooze their way up the corporate ladder and bullshit their way into high paying jobs that they don't deserve.

I went back to college and took up Business Management, because I don't think there is a future in Computer Science anymore, most graduates don't take Computer Science seriously and are in it only for the money, plus a lot of computer jobs got offshored to India and China, and the government keeps increasing the cap on H1B Visa applications and foreigners can come to the USA and work for minimum wage in computer jobs, legally. Hard to compete with that.

Re:Frankly....

[lgw]

Were there any US citizens in your Masters program? I was recently trying to hire interns and new college grads from Masters programs in California, and there was not a citizen to be found, nor was there much interest in CS in a geeky way. Everyone I talked to was clearly in the field because of econimic necessity, and getting a MS because it makes it far easier to get a Green Card (though it's still ridiculously hard right now).

We have lawyers aplently to deal with visas, but I had to give up on the idea of only hiring people who actually *liked* CS and programmed at home for fun. It sad, really. It sucks to work with people who got into CS "because my parents choes this career for me" (no joke), and don't really enjoy the work.

It's a scary sign for America that our graduate schools seem to almost exclusively educate foreigners. Of course, if those folks immigrate then it's all good, but with the crazy H1-B situation and high difficulty of actually becoming a citizen, we're *not* producing the next crop of highly educated American CS folks here.