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Computer Science Enrollments Rocketed Last Year, Up 22%
alphadogg writes "A sneak peek at the annual Computing Research Association's (CRA) report on computer science enrollments at colleges shows that strong demand for technically-savvy workers is luring students in a big way. The full 2013 Taulbee Report will be published in May, but the CRA revealed a few tidbits this week in its Computer Research News publication. Among the findings: Among 123 departments responding last year and the year before, there was a 22% increase in enrollment for computer science bachelor's degree programs at U.S. schools. Degrees awarded increased 0.9% and new enrollments rose 13.7%"
Based on inflation, don't take less than $53K starting. That's the equiv of $36K in 1997. Inflation is a bitch.
I love the idea of people who are genuinely interested gaining access to these careers but this reminds me too much of the last dot-com bubble. All sorts of idiots who had no business getting into technology jumped into the pool chasing lucrative salaries and making gigantic messes once they got hired. It took years to flush them all back out.
The kids see $220,000,000 spent on a website that doesn't work (ie: CoverOregon) and think "Hell, that looks like easy work for the compensation" and they're right.
there was a 22% increase in enrollment for computer science bachelor's degree programs at U.S. schools
Great news for American technology! Of course it will take a while before those students graduate, so we'll need to "temporarily" increase the H-1B quota 3x. We assure you that this is being done only to keep the industry from completely collapsing due to the desperate shortage of qualified people, so that we'll be able to offer jobs to all those American students when they graduate.
Get at least six months of work in the field before you graduate with your CS degree.
Oh, and based on what I've seen, a lot of the students taking that are from other countries.
Not to be confused with local students, of which there are many.
As to the supposed goal of increasing women in technology, I've noticed it's all about only direct entry first year in STEM targetted on girls in middle and high school, which is fine, but ignores all the women who graduated high school and started work in another field or got all or part way to a degree in another field before deciding they liked tech better.
You need to fix that, because there are too many hoops to jump through and it's very confusing.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Seems like I hear complaints from every field these days about not enough jobs for graduates, even in the medical fields.
Which medical fields? How many unemployed doctors do you know? Their union does a good job of restricting supply.
I remember CS enrollment shot way up in the late 90s as the dotcom bubble was inflating. Now that we're in the late stages of the social media/apps bubble, and people are getting interested in computer science again, I'm guessing that's the reason for the spike.
Bubble or no bubble, there's always going to be demand for good, talented people in software development and IT. The H-1B and offshoring trends have cut salaries significantly, and have made employment less stable, but there are still jobs out there. If students are going into CS that have a genuine interest in computers, that's good. Chasing the money like they were doing in the 90s without the desire will lead to the same problem we had when 2001 rolled around -- tons of "IT professionals" who had no aptitude for the work and were just employed because of the frothy market.
I've managed to stay employed for almost 20 years now and I still really enjoy what I do. It's not as wildly lucrative as it was in the 90s when you could get 20+% salary increases by changing jobs every six months. The only things I've done consistently over this time are:
- Keeping my skills current (and yes, it is a tough commitment especially when you employer doesn't care.)
- Not begging for higher and higher raises every single time salary review time comes around (which requires saving and living within one's means...)
- Choosing employers who don't treat their employees like they're disposable.
I've heard lots of older IT people that they're actively discouraging their kids from following in their footsteps. I don't think that's necessarily good advice. Sure, there are crappy employers out there, and it's not a guaranteed ticket to wealth anymore. But if you're flexible and want interesting work that lets you use your brain and get paid for it, it's still a good move IMO. Look at the legal profession right now - the ABA sold out their members by allowing basic legal work to be offshored. Law degrees were previously an absolute guarantee of a respected, high-salary job, and now that profession is starting to see what we're seeing. My opinion is that as computers get more and more involved in our daily lives, a professional framework will eventually develop when things really start getting safety-sensitive and people stop treating computers like magic boxes and IT/developers like magicians.
Do they speak English or French in Kannada?
get out now and go somewhere with real skills before your loans get to high.
Then go back once you realize that no one wants to hire you if you don't have a Bachelor's Degree.
See, I took that route - instead of 'wasting time' on a four year degree, I jumped into the industry with both feet, spending the last decade gaining experience, learning to work on production systems that students only hear about, and recent CS grads only know in theory.
Yet I can't seem to get out of low-pay, entry level positions; why? Because I don't have a Bachelor's degree.
In the 20th Century, you could get by on experience alone. Here in the 21st, it seems that all employers care about is that little piece of paper.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
I blame the Raspberry Pi myself. Oh, damn those fiendish Engishmen for inventing it! Nobody expected the Raspberry Pi.
"Cock Up Your Beaver" does not mean what you think. This sig is intended to clog filters and annoy do-gooders
HR departments are the bane of modern business.
"Sorry, sir, but we just don't feel that you're qualified for this entry-level programming position"
"But I'm Bill Gates!"
"Yes, and your application clearly shows that you dropped out of college before obtaining your Bachelor's Degree..."
"But I'm *Bill Gates*!"
"Sorry sir, please apply again when you have the required degree..."
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
It's not restricted at the "union" level - it's restricted at the school level. The local vet school, for example, strictly caps enrollment at 100 new students a year, with another 200 or so continuing on in specialty fields. So they have roughly 600 students enrolled maximum. This is because veterinary medicine is a slow growth field, and they want to produce enough students to replace retiring vets and match growth without flooding the market, lowering wages, and making people with $200K in student loans unemployed.
There is a dire shortage of doctors in certain fields, so medical schools who handle those specialty fields (e.g. geriatrics - old people are not glamorous) are increasing enrollment cautiously.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
Former nurse turned programmer here. Nursing demand has always been cyclical. Or, at least since the 90's when I went to nursing school. It starts with a huge demand for nurses. Lots of people jump into the field, getting ADNs, LPNs, and sometimes higher degrees. Within a few years, the demand is met and there is a glut of nurses on the market. Eventually, those people who got into nursing because they wanted a (relatively) high-paying job with decent benefits see all the crap (figuratively and literally) you have to deal with. Combined with a typically hostile workplace, many relatively new nurses end up leaving the field. The cycle repeats. I mention hostile workplace because nursing is well known for being one of the few professions out there that still "eats their young." All that to say: give it time. They'll be another shortage within 3-4 years.
CS/IT is about an oxymoron:
You need to specialize in something so that you have a skill not the average person coming from the degree mills possesses.
BUT you also have to not specialize so much that if/when that skill becomes not needed, one is hosed, be it COBOL, C++ programming, Java clientside applets, etc.
For example, certifications. It is good to have some in several different items because I've found that in previous jobs I've had, auditors will go through the server room, demand certification IDs from staff, and if they are expired (or don't exist), said worker is fired on the spot for "failing to have the authority to operate the device."
This is a tough balance. Error on the jack of all trades, your resume gets tossed. Too far the other way, you end up too specialized and if your specialty goes out the door, you are hosed until you can retool (on your own dime).
Blame the bean counting MBAs running the hospitals and focusing solely on the bottom line - profit over patient care.
Yup, patient to nurse ratio is much higher than it used to be, or than it is in other countries. If you go through the numbers, you'll find that nurses are but a tiny part of the utterly obscene hospital bills you get these days. Of course the MBA's pinch pennies on the people who actually provide patient care, and lavish salaries on "administrators" like themselves.