Slashdot Mirror
College Students Are Rushing in Record Numbers To Study Computer Science (nytimes.com)
Lured by the prospect of high-salary, high-status jobs, college students are rushing in record numbers to study computer science. Now, if only they could get a seat in class. An anonymous reader shares a report: On campuses across the country, from major state universities to small private colleges, the surge in student demand for computer science courses is far outstripping the supply of professors, as the tech industry snaps up talent. At some schools, the shortage is creating an undergraduate divide of computing haves and have-nots -- potentially narrowing a path for some minority and female students to an industry that has struggled with diversity. The number of undergraduates majoring in the subject more than doubled from 2013 to 2017, to over 106,000, while tenure-track faculty ranks rose about 17 percent, according to the Computing Research Association, a nonprofit that gathers data from about 200 universities.
Economics and the promise of upward mobility are driving the student stampede. While previous generations of entrepreneurial undergraduates might have aspired to become lawyers or doctors, many students now are leery of investing the time, and incurring six-figure debts, to join those professions. By contrast, learning computing skills can be a fast path to employment, as fields as varied as agriculture, banking and genomics incorporate more sophisticated computing. While the quality of programs across the country varies widely, some computer science majors make six-figure salaries straight out of school. At the University of Texas at Austin, which has a top computer science program, more than 3,300 incoming first-year students last fall sought computer science as their first choice of major, more than double the number who did so in 2014.
Economics and the promise of upward mobility are driving the student stampede. While previous generations of entrepreneurial undergraduates might have aspired to become lawyers or doctors, many students now are leery of investing the time, and incurring six-figure debts, to join those professions. By contrast, learning computing skills can be a fast path to employment, as fields as varied as agriculture, banking and genomics incorporate more sophisticated computing. While the quality of programs across the country varies widely, some computer science majors make six-figure salaries straight out of school. At the University of Texas at Austin, which has a top computer science program, more than 3,300 incoming first-year students last fall sought computer science as their first choice of major, more than double the number who did so in 2014.
How many are dropping out when they find out whats involved with the major or don't make it through the weeder classes? I got my degree in 2002, at the time UMass had about 300-400 incoming CS majors and graduated 50 students a year.
Many many people who come in without pre-existing self interest and self exploration find the subject too dull or too hard to make it.
Back when I went to college, there was a similar rush - to the extent that one college I applied to, said I couldn't get in because the CS major I had chosen was full! Lucky that wasn't my first choice, but it was a big state school so it was quite a surprise as that was one of the backup choices...
Hopefully this is a more sustained rise in CS interest, which does need good people that understand most CS principals.
And hopefully it is actually learning CS principals of logical math and algorithms, rather than just learning how to compile Java/C#/Python/whichever the most popular language is. Rushes like this concern me a little that the schools wont take the time to teach properly.
kids aren't that dumb. Those jobs have been outsourced and "insourced" (e.g. replaced by H1-Bs) non stop for 20 years. Go into medicine kids, Folks want to see their doctor in person.
br. Then again maybe this is folks gunning for jobs that didn't used to need a college degree because companies use degrees as leverage to get H1-Bs and skip training costs.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Wait, I'm supposed to be high status? As in people are supposed to look up to me, or listen to what I have to say?
The reality seems more like I'm just an "IT Guy", which apparently some kind of code monkey or help desk guy. Either that, or I'm just born with all the knowledge of the whole IT world in my brain, and if I don't know something, I'm somehow an idiot.
But this status thing sounds nice. Like I'm a doctor or lawyer, and have reached some kind of god-like level. When does that come into play?
Over the years I've been to a few graduation ceremonies and every time when graduates of the school of computer science and math (or engineering in some cases) is asked to stand up, half the class does. And about four kids stand up for the school of liberal arts and humanities. There was a lull in the early thousands because of the dot.bomb crash but it picked right up again.
For the last 20 years, the only companies that think there's a "shortage" of Comp Sci grads are the ones who insist on only recruiting from top schools. Here in metro Atlanta, there a few companies who only recruit from Georgia Tech and bitch because they can't get enough CS grads. They are under this impression that grads from state are stupid or something.
There was the popping of the Tech bubble, mostly because Y2k fixes have been applied, or most organizations have upgraded their systems to newer ones.
But what else was the Clinton Administration opening the H1B Visa which had begin to flood the market with Cheap IT workers too.
This created a double whammy. A lowering demand in IT goods and services with a rising supply of IT workers. This really caused the bubble to pop.
Back in the late 1990's Front Page "Web Developers" were being paid 70k a year, and real programmers were getting paid 6 digits out of college.
Tech workers were at the C table suite, with power and authority.... Then it kinda just popped, so as their pay lowered because there was so many more options and less demand, their power rolls have decreased too.
Tech jobs started to pick up around 2009 or so, while the economy is recovering, tech was needed to work smarter and with less resources. Which made tech workers one of the few Middle class jobs. No where near like it was in 1999 but a good solid career.
So now that the old guard boomer tech workers are retiring, we are seeing a new generation wanting a decent quality of life studying classes that will bring them there with rather clear job paths.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I swear I saw this exact same thing happening in 1999.
And then a year later the bubble burst.
The demand for big data is yet another bubble.
I once heard one of my own CS teachers say the only reason they agreed to teach Java, besides the mandate from higher ups, was because it didn't require teaching the students about memory management. I.e. RAM usage and and making sure you have enough allocated memory to flush working data to disk safely if the system craps itself.
Java is a quite reasonable langues to start teaching in. My school started with Scheme, for mostly the same reasons (pre-Java), though the department did have a hard-on for functional programming.
I don't have any problem with students learning to program in Java. What causes problems is students only learning to program in Java.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
If you have a decade of experience, it usually only takes about 24 hours to learn a new language well enough to get shit done in it.
That is only if the new language is a "normal" computer language that consists of statements executed sequentially, with loops and branches, and the only new thing is a change in syntax.
If the new language, such as Prolog or Verilog, doesn't fit that paradigm, many programmers will struggle, and the "years of experience" can actually be a detriment. Some will never "get it".
That's a bummer. Just curious, what school did you attend?
I went to University of Connecticut, and I can tell you I had a mastery of C++ and Java before leaving school as those were the focus (1999-2004). My job has *not* been outsourced, went from Junior to Senior, to Manager now Director of my software division. Learning how to learn is probably the most important things you can comprehend in school. I started contracting in web development while I was in school. Even though my school days were post 1999 bubble, people at the time could still make money programming, especially discount rate college students.
Do you have to be driven? Yes. Do you have to work hard? Absolutely. Is CS an awesome career? Yes! If a piece of paper is needed as the entry fee, then I would insist that its totally worth it. Total cost for me was $70k (tuition and housing), 100% financed as I had no financial support -- and I would do it all over again.
Disclaimer: CS is only a good choice if you have a genuine interest and love for electronics and/or software. If you're came here just for the promise of money, you will suck at it.
If you REALLY want to be rich become a Car Mechanic or a Plumber.
It seems to me there really is a strong demand for certain computer-related fields, but "Computer Science" gets thrown out there as a college major far more often, as kind of a "catch all".
Correct me if I'm wrong, but back when I was in college in the early 1990's, Computer Science was essentially a math degree, where you learned a lot of theory of how computer CPU's work along with the other circuit level internals that make up a computer. As soon as I told my guidance counselor that I had an interest in computers, she immediately tried to steer me that direction. That's when I pushed back, because I'm not even very good at math and that's not at all what interests me about them. I was more fascinated by the growing ability to network computers together and use them as a next generation communications tool. (Once I said THAT, they put me in some telecom courses that were really about nothing more than analog telephony over copper wires. So that was a waste too.)
In hindsight, I think I was really searching for a good MIS career path, but it barely existed back then. I wound up focusing on creative writing instead, and learned the computer ins and outs on my own.
I see data analytics as "the next big thing" right now, if you're math inclined. There's BIG money in finding experts who can crunch big data collections and interpret their meaning for everything from politics to marketing. It's also a pretty good bet to get specialized in distributed, cloud-hosted databases, if that piques your interest. I suppose there's some demand for a computer scientist who can grok the upcoming quantum computing revolution too. But all in all? I can't see it being that worthwhile to invest in a Comp Sci degree right now, vs. some other options?
Zero jobs will be replaced by AI. Only parts of jobs will be replaced by AI.