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College Students Are Flocking To Computer Science Majors (ieeeusa.org)
Slashdot reader dcblogs writes:
Enrollments in Computer Science are on a hockey stick trajectory and show no signs of slowing down. Stanford University declared computer science enrollments, for instance, went from 87 in the 2007-08 academic year to 353 in the recently completed year. It's similar at other schools. Boston University, for instance, had 110 declared undergraduate computer science majors in 2009. This fall it will have more than 550. Professor Mehran Sahami, who is the associate chair for education in the CS department at Stanford, believes the enrollment trend will continue. "As the numbers bear out, the interest in computer science has grown tremendously and shows no signs of crashing." But after the 2000 dot-com bust computer science enrollments fell dramatically and students soured on the degree. Could something like it happen again?
Mark Crovella, the chair of Boston University's CS department, notes that "the overall interest in computer science at B.U. is currently at about twice the level it was at the peak of the dot.com year." But the article points out that salaries for new grads are still rising, "which suggests that demand is real." And Jay Ritter, a professor of finance at the University of Florida's Warrington College of Business Administration, adds "I'm more worried about the job outlook for people without these skills."
Mark Crovella, the chair of Boston University's CS department, notes that "the overall interest in computer science at B.U. is currently at about twice the level it was at the peak of the dot.com year." But the article points out that salaries for new grads are still rising, "which suggests that demand is real." And Jay Ritter, a professor of finance at the University of Florida's Warrington College of Business Administration, adds "I'm more worried about the job outlook for people without these skills."
At my university, we've been watching the explosion of CS majors for the past few years and wondering when the enrollment curve is going to flatten out. So far it shows no signs, with CS already being the largest major in the engineering school.
We are scrambling to find instructors for the new sections that we need to open, and rooms in which to teach them. We're hardly alone - all of our peer institutions are reporting similar trends.
One thing that does concern my colleagues is that a significant portion of the students now entering CS show little aptitude or interest in programming concepts. Students who have failed or dropped the freshman "Introduction to Programming" two or three times in a row absolutely refuse to switch majors. They want that six-figure starting salary, and they will do whatever it takes to get the degree. I am guessing the same thing is happening at every other school that isn't taking some measure to push unqualified students out of CS.
Employers should be prepared to ask a lot of "FizzBuzz" interview questions over the next few years, because quite a few under-qualified CS graduates from prestigious schools are going to be hitting the job market.