Computer Science Major Is Cool Again

netbuzz sends along a piece from Network World reporting that the number of computer science majors enrolled at US universities increased for the first time in six years, according to new survey data out this morning. The Taulbee Study found that the number of undergraduates signed up as computer science majors rose 8% last year. The survey was conducted last fall, just as the economic downturn started to bite. The article notes the daunting competition for positions at top universities: Carnegie Mellon University received 2,600 applications for 130 undergrad spots, and 1,400 for 26 PhD slots. "...the popularity of computer science majors among college freshmen and sophomores is because IT has better job prospects than other specialties, especially in light of the global economic downturn. ... The latest unemployment numbers for 2008 for computer software engineers is 1.6%... That's beyond full employment. ... The demand for tech jobs may rise further thanks to the Obama Administration's stimulus package, which could create nearly 1 million new tech jobs."

Comments

Re:Beyond full employment?

[i.of.the.storm]

Full employment is defined as around 5% unemployment. This is made up of frictional unemployment, people between jobs or looking for their first one, structural unemployment, people whose skills are obsolete, and cyclical unemployment, unemployment due to the ebb and flow of the business cycle.

Re:RTFA

[Metasquares]

Data mining and databases aren't really the same thing (although mining is often performed on databases). Data mining is actually pretty similar to AI: it involves tasks such as classification, clustering, and feature extraction that require constructing statistical models and learning about the dataset in question. The techniques involve more linear algebra and statistics than many CS undergrads will take. Moreover, mining isn't explicitly demanded in industry (certainly not at the level that programming is, at least). I suspect most people are unaware of it.

Re:Isn't Everybody Going Back to School?

[tverbeek]

You can't get through a single news item or political speech on the subject of the current job market without the reporter/politician saying something about how people need to be retrained for jobs in "health care" or "high tech", because that's where the jobs will be. Of course this doesn't mean that we'll have a surplus of job openings in IT... only that most other fields (especially manufacturing and farming) are contracting like an old red supergiant.

(The only field that really looks good for the foreseeable future is nursing. With the Boomers already starting into their 60s and lifespans reaching into the medically-dependent 90s, there is going to be a persistent need for lots of nurses in the decades to come, and that's something that simply cannot be "off-shored". How we'll pay them all a living wage is a good question, but at least they'll have jobs.)

Re:Cool?

[xenocide2]

Do yourself a favor, go find the richest, most Republican suburb you can, and find its mall. Time how long it takes from stepping out of your car to finding Army recruiters. Move towards the urban center and repeat this experiment every five miles.

Feel free to stop when you can't make it to the mall doors anymore. Then look around, and look at the economic conditions people there live in. Ask yourself whether you feel "desperation" or "patriotism".