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.

Comments

Deja Vu

[Spy Handler]

I swear I saw this exact same thing happening in 1999.

And then a year later the bubble burst.

Re:Deja Vu

[DickBreath]

> I swear I saw this exact same thing happening in 1999.

1980 by my recollection.

People rushing to learn about these new fangled computer thingies because you can get paid big money by pushing buttons on these things.

The problem in 1980, as in 1999, as now, is there are plenty of posers who can't program their way out of a paper bag. You could show someone a few statements of a simple programming language, and they could memorize them. But they couldn't put together the logic of a routine to calculate the sum of the numbers from 1 to 1000. Today the FizzBuzz test is a better example as the first-level sieve to weed out the incapable.

I seem to recall the 100 Best Jobs in America and Software Developer was number 1. No surprise unskilled talentless hacks are rushing to it.

Remember those books of the genre: "Learn ${LanguageX} in 24 hours!". How about changing that to Learn LanguageX in only Ten Years!

Re:Deja Vu

[jellomizer]

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.

Re: Deja Vu

[ShanghaiBill]

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".

Re:Deja Vu

[tlhIngan]

Y2K was mostly a non-problem. Some companies expended a lot of effort, and avoided problems. Other companies did absolutely nothing, and they didn't have any problems either.

The story was, that to save memory, programmers would store the year in two bytes instead of four. But this was mostly nonsense. In the olden days programmers would store the year in ONE binary byte, and add it to 1900. So the real crash will happen on January 1st, 2156.

False. Lots of companies expended lots of money fixing the issue, making it a non-problem. People that didn't, often only seen minor issues (year 19100, computers that wouldn't boot because the BIOS wrapped, etc). There were plenty of real world non-computer Y2K issues as well, often with date fields that pre-populated "19" in the year.

And also false that one binary byte was used - dates are almost always stored in a form of BCD. This is exceptionally true if you had a mainframe computer because BCD was its primary mode of operation. In fact, Y2K issues cropped up in the 70s, because banks tried to issue 25 year mortgages and found out their computers gave errors trying to arrange the mortgages. So the financial industry was long aware of Y2K issues for decades before everyone else and they often had them fixed well before everyone else heard of them. Even industries like insurance would've ran into issues in the early 90s when term insurance started extending into the 2000s.

About the only issues were infrastructure and utilities who had little need for long term planning in their computer systems and thus would run into things only in real time. But they managed to survive, mostly because the issues lay within the billing and logging systems and not generally within control systems. This was also pre-smart meter era so even if the billing computer said you haven't paid in 100 years, they wouldn't cut your electricity off automatically.

Re: Deja Vu

[ShanghaiBill]

Verilog isn't even a programming language though.

Verilog is Turing-complete and can do anything any other programming language can do. The difference is that it doesn't do stuff in sequence. It all happens at the same time.

Whereas Verilog is a hardware description language.

Verilog can be run on a CPU just like any other language. That is usually how it is initially debugged and tested. Even when deployed, most Verilog programs run on FPGAs, not custom hardware.

The inherent parallelism requires a different mindset. Many programmers have a hard time with that, or even with GPGPU programming in C, or writing shader pipelines. Ascending the learning curve is going to take more than 24 hours. It is a lot more than new syntax.

Many rushing in but...

[steveb3210]

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.

Re: Many rushing in but...

[TimMD909]

People who are good at computers will be good at it even without schooling. The degree is just putting a bow on a person dedicated to learning. You can't buy dedication.

Re:Echos old times

[Drethon]

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.

Re:Echos old times

[hierofalcon]

Learning principles would be even better.

I smell bullshit

[rsilvergun]

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.

High status?

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Save $$

[al0ha]

Fools - chasing jobs that will be replaced by AI before their work careers are probably 1/2 over. Go back to Blue Collar young bloods; paid apprenticeships and a virtually unlimited future in plumbing and electrical contracting; these industries can't find enough qualified people.

Re:Save $$

[avandesande]

Never going to happen. Remember in the 90s when drag and drop programming was going to take over? I will posit this- sufficiently defined requirements are indistinguishable from computer code.

It never stopped.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Glad to see I'm in the thundering horde..

[bobbied]

After being out of school for 25+ years I just started my masters in CS. Should be done in about 28 months.

This explains why the classes are ALL 100% full with students sitting on the floor.

Make sure you have the dedication for CS

[foxalopex]

While it's great that there are lots of people considering learning the CS major, it worries me a little that there's a vast majority of people that do not realize that it is a type of job that never stops changing. If being a carpenter was like this it would be like needing to use a vastly new hammer that wouldn't even work the same way every couple of years. Some of the best CS folks are people who play / fiddle / learn the new technologies in their own spare time ontop of what they're taught. And don't think competent employers can't tell the difference, they can.

Re:Echos old times

[lgw]

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.

Re:Great more LISP weenies and ML professors.

[twebb72]

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.

Young Fools.

[Zorro]

If you REALLY want to be rich become a Car Mechanic or a Plumber.

Comp Sci, eh?

[King_TJ]

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?

Re:hmmmm

[uncqual]

I didn't get that either so I did the unthinkable - I skimmed the article and found this (before I gave up)...

Some university leaders said they were concerned that certain measures taken to address surging student demand may disadvantage people who are already unrepresented in computer science — including women, African-Americans, Latinos and low-income, first-generation college students.

Some universities now require incoming students to get accepted into computer science majors before they arrive on campus — and make it nearly impossible for other undergraduates to transfer into the major. That approach can favor incoming students from schools with resources like advanced programming courses. It can also favor male students — because women on average are less likely to have taken a computer science course in high school.

“When you put any kind of barrier in place in terms of access to computer science majors, it tends to reduce the number of women and students of color in the program,” said Maria Klawe, president of Harvey Mudd College, a private college in Claremont, Calif., that has become a national model for diversity in computer science.

Although, it seems any decision on the part of female students to eschew available computer science courses in high school isn't a "problem". Surely very few, and no public, high schools let boys take such classes while preventing girls from taking them. Perhaps girls and boys tend to choose different courses in high school, but that's a free will choice of each student.

Similarly, I don't see it as a "problem" that women are under represented in commercial fishing and logging (two of the most dangerous professions in the country) or in plumbing and construction laborer (dirty and hard jobs respectively) -- I don't see a lot of women clamoring to get into these fields and finding that they are excluded based on gender (vs. strength or willingness to take physical risks or willingness to get dirty and work in unpleasant weather conditions -- all of which would be their choices).