Slashdot Log In
CS Degrees Low in 2007 But Bouncing Back
Posted by
Zonk
on Wed Mar 05, 2008 05:02 PM
from the watch-the-curve dept.
from the watch-the-curve dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The number of undergraduate computer science degrees awarded last year hit a new low with the Class of 2007. The degrees awarded, 8,000, as tracked by the Computing Research Association, is only half of what it was five years ago. In 2003-04 — the high point of this decade — 14,185 students were awarded bachelors degrees in computer science from the 170 PhD granting universities tracked by the CRA. That said, after a decade of severe declines, the number of students at top universities declaring themselves as computer science majors is finally seeing an increase. Though it's only a small increase, it's an increase nonetheless. Experts attribute the shift to changes in job market, and also to changes in curriculum and the marketing of comp sci programs."
Related Stories
Submission: Computer science degrees hit new low in '07 by Anonymous Coward
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
FTA: (Score:5, Funny)
How did this not make it in to the summary?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:FTA: (Score:4, Funny)
People with a CS degree tend to fall into the second category.....which still isn't sexy. (But it sure is fun).
Layne
Parent
Re:FTA: (Score:4, Funny)
>
> How did this not make it in to the summary?
Truth in Advertising laws. Consider this billboard [livejournal.com], for example. Much more accurate!
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
That's right, for the pussy.
Frankly.... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not exactly bad news.
I started computer science in 1994, when the boom was not yet there. Most people then were passionate about computers, maths and programming. When I graduated, a friend of mine stayed as a PhD candidate. The classes enlistment had then quintupled compared to our class, and one thing was clear: those that were there, were not passionate about the subject. They were there because it promised a golden career. They had also really trouble getting people to actually pass the first year.
So, I hope that computer science graduation is down because those that belong there are attending. Not those that just want to make big bucks because it's an "in profession".
Completely agree (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Completely agree (Score:5, Insightful)
i see software engineering as an answer to "build the solution" whereas computer science is more about answering "what is the solution". then again, i have a fairly old school "c.s. is a combination of applied applied math and applied discrete math" world view.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Completely agree (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Just register a domain name and then a DBA, LLC, or corporation (take your pick, DBA and sole prop is the cheapest) and do your side projects under your business. Even if your business has negative profits (a great tax deduction), which it probably will if your projects are just for learning or fun, but you could claim your hobby experience as professional e
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
So, I hope that computer science graduation is down because those that belong there are attending. Not those that just want to make big bucks because it's an "in profession".
I believe I'm not alone here in saying that this applies to the majority of people earning Bachelors' Degrees. The Bachelors' is the new highschool diploma, while the Masters' is the new Bachelors'. Fortunately, the PhD. is still the PhD.
Seriously, though; when I look through my economics courses, I wonder how half of the people managed to get in to the university. I also wonder how half of the people left (1/4 of the total, for those of you who are in the 1/2 that shouldn't be in the University) are in
Re:Frankly.... (Score:4, Insightful)
As ridiculously easy as using a spell checker?
Usually I'm not quite so pedantic, but you were commenting on how dumbed down folks are, and I couldn't resist...
Parent
Applied != Gone (Score:3, Interesting)
I was valedictorian of my undergraduate college. My time there wasn't challenging at all, and I often had to fill in the gaps my formal education left on my own. Following my graduation, I applied to several of the ivies - and some other good schools in my area - to do my Ph. D. I wanted a challenge. I was prepared to do a lot of work if it was required of me. I wanted to become the best researcher I could be, studying interesting problems under the best researchers in the field.
I was rejected from all of
Re:Frankly.... (Score:5, Insightful)
i graduated with my first c.s. degree during the peak 2003-2004 and i can tell you that about half the people that i graduated with have since burned out and moved on to new careers. i would estimate that an overwhelming majority of the people that i started out with thought that majoring in c.s. would help them earn lots of money. something like 80% of the people that started in c.s. at the same time i did switched majors because they realized that c.s. wasn't for them. about half the people that were left were people that realized, too late, that c.s. wasn't for them but they were so far down the road that switching majors wasn't an option. most of them ended up having to take the upper division theory classes a few times before barely earning a passing grade, and then got out as fast as they could. they were uniformly miserable.
i stuck around to work on a m.s. in c.s. and i noticed a similar, although less severe pattern there --- again, about half the people that were in my grad foundation sequence classes (compilers, operating systems, algorithms, and a.i.) washed out before they managed to finish the sequence. an informal survey of people in my o/s class showed that about 60% of them were there for the money. just like undergrad, the people who washed out were miserable.
by way of comparison, the people who survived to take the "fun" grad level classes (computer vision, intro robotics, image processing, etc.) were a lot more fun to be with and generally a lot more excited about what was going on. classes went from enrollments of 45-60 to 10-20, professors were markedly more relaxed, and i felt that, in general, i got a lot more out of those classes than i did anything else in my education.
in the long term, i think that c.s., like most of the math / science / engineering disciplines, is extraordinarily demanding and unless it's something that a person really enjoys doing, i don't seem them surviving in a c.s. related career for very long.
Parent
Re:Frankly.... (Score:4, Interesting)
We have lawyers aplently to deal with visas, but I had to give up on the idea of only hiring people who actually *liked* CS and programmed at home for fun. It sad, really. It sucks to work with people who got into CS "because my parents choes this career for me" (no joke), and don't really enjoy the work.
It's a scary sign for America that our graduate schools seem to almost exclusively educate foreigners. Of course, if those folks immigrate then it's all good, but with the crazy H1-B situation and high difficulty of actually becoming a citizen, we're *not* producing the next crop of highly educated American CS folks here.
Parent
Re:Frankly.... (Score:5, Interesting)
So much of the CS market is flooded with wantabes and posers that barely know how to use a computer, much less program or troubleshoot one. I recall working for a community college in 1990 in one of their computer labs, and people with BS, MBS, and PHDs in Computer Science went to the community college to learn what they missed in Four year college and I worked as a tutor and educational assistant for some of them. I also subbed for the debugger as she didn't know C, Pascal, BASIC, Assembly as well as I did and I got the hard to debug programs.
Businesses went from hiring programmers like me who do quality control built into design, towards hiring kids right out of college with no experience who can write programs "good enough" to work and get the job done even if it crashes their servers a dozen times a day. Microsoft certification doesn't work either as they earn it and learned the answers on the Internet and got certified anyway.
While I earned A's and B's, and eventually earned all A's and graduated with honors, a lot of these other CS majors barely graduated but know how to schmooze their way up the corporate ladder and bullshit their way into high paying jobs that they don't deserve.
I went back to college and took up Business Management, because I don't think there is a future in Computer Science anymore, most graduates don't take Computer Science seriously and are in it only for the money, plus a lot of computer jobs got offshored to India and China, and the government keeps increasing the cap on H1B Visa applications and foreigners can come to the USA and work for minimum wage in computer jobs, legally. Hard to compete with that.
Parent
I hate people who want to make big bucks (Score:4, Funny)
Golden careers? That's for people who want to retire comfortably and be able to support a family.
Real computer science people work for peanuts with a smile.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
However, that's just a phenomenon from the last five years or so (when computers started to be cheap and graphical user interfaces were stable). I say five years, because Windows 95 came out in (duh) late 1995 and people needed to grew up with it to think "they could operate a computer". Someone going to college in 1995, having computer experience would know the pre-95 days. I remember a gir
Graduants more important that declations (Score:2)
It's the non-CS courses causing drops (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm doing fine in my math and science, but I'm betting not everybody is. I'm not quite sure why you need all of this excessive math and science (except when the Computer Science is in the School of Engineering--but not all colleges are like this).
I've been programming for years--with code in many Open Source projects like Nmap, Metasploit and the Linux Kernel--but I did this without the courses at my college. Other people are probably realizing they can do the same and picking different majors to avoid the higher-level math and science.
But, hey, I'm just a CS major bored in my classes.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
People drop out of CS programs because of programming courses too. The first thing that gets people is recursion. The next big thing is pointers. Some people just aren't prepared for those concepts, and it's too much for them.
Sure, Calc takes out some students too, but in a good CS program the programming courses aren't "easy" for everyone either.
Re:It's the non-CS courses causing drops (Score:5, Insightful)
Because it's computer science, i.e. the science of computing. A CS degree, for better or worse, is not a programming apprenticeship.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
As a 3rd year undergraduate computer science student, here is my best answer:
Re:It's the non-CS courses causing drops (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, I think the science needs to stay in Computer Science not because of what you're going to do today, but what you're going to do tomorrow. Higher maths and hard (as opposed to soft) sciences mercilessly teach problem solving and deduction, shake the foundations of any man foolish enough to ignore simplification, and demand understanding not so much of HOW things are done but WHY things are done in that way.
I'm not saying someone without that experience can't code well, not at all. Some people are just naturally gifted at thinking through problems and algorithms and following the natural order of things. Others, plain and simple, struggle. Hard corequisites force the sort of muscle memory one needs to properly apply the science to the practice.
I know I'd much prefer to drive an engineered car than one plodged together by a mechanic.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The programming classes should bore you out of your gord if algorithm analysis doesn't tickle your fan
CS and the Game Of Life (Score:5, Insightful)
- you may have a high salary but when you divide it by how many hours you work, you could be making more money per hour and having fun doing something else
- companies send the jobs to somewhere in the world where employees are cheap, executives who do the cutting get gigantic bonuses on top of gigantic salaries
- companies talk about hiring "superstar" programmers when what they really need are good processes and tools to help people communicate and design good products; few organizations invest in people, many waste time trying to find Code Messiahs
- hiring good managers is much more than just promoting "technical" people into management
- open-source is cool and changing the way people think, but unless your a member of a certain kind of company, you'll need a day-job too (o:
Architects... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't want to say a CS degrees is worthless, au contraire. But I think the focus should shift more to other means of computer education. Most companies don't need people who know all the math theory you can find in The Art Of Computer Programming, but people who can write solid code for the small everyday software development tasks that make up the majority of a software project. They must know their tools (softwares and APIs) and need to know the common mechanisms (e.g. what's a linked list and how does it work, what's a singleton pattern, etc. pp.). For most of this stuff you really don't need to study to understand them, IMHO
Re:Architects... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
FTA: Bill Gates (Score:5, Insightful)
Pure Truthiness. Bilbo has it backwards. H1-B's are causing the decline in CS enrollment. Lifting the cap will cause further decline.
He must still be bitten by the entire anti-trust fiasco, and now uses the gov't as his tool, after ignoring and being dumped on by it.
Re:FTA: Bill Gates (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of them can't get hired after they graduate because companies are increasingly unwilling to sponsor visas, but it's sure not keeping them from coming to school here.
If you're looking for the reason for the drop in enrollment you don't really have to look any farther than the
Parent
Being one of those.... (Score:4, Informative)
Honestly, the courses were too easy or too hard. I think it was just that Math or business was just easier to work with, since your pencil and paper never require manipulating executive files and messing with header files.
I think that perhaps, it's not that it is too low or that students aren't hearing about the major, but rather not many like having to beat their heads over learning Dijkstra, Euler, and what the Big O's of the typical data structures or whatever weed out subjects are.
What I think would be more interesting is seeing how many minors are being sought by other disciplines for CS and what CS majors are taking for a minor
Either way, I was put on contract before graduating then another one a few months later. I'm pretty happy so far, but wonder if I'll be content once I look for a bit more permanent job (if such things still exist)
Math, Bad Teachers, and Outdated Corriculum (Score:3, Insightful)
A big problem I see today is not a lack of students attempting to get into the industry but a lack of qualified teachers who know not only the topic but also how to convey the ideas and thinking required to push people to really understand what their being tought as opposed to simply studying for the test or doing the labs till they are done.
The biggest problem I see myself at the University I attend (Temple University, Philadelphia) is that the math while pretty important in a CS degree is pretty much useless in an IS&T degree, yet we are still required to take Calculus, Statistics, and Logic. Because of this inconsistency we have a high abandonment percentage from CS to IS&T. Further compounding the problem is a lack of teachers who can actually teach well. Many of them can't even speak English well enough for the majority of students to understand. Now I'm an immigrant to the US myself (came from Ukraine when I was 6 yrs old), I speak fluent Russian, but if my teacher is teaching in English and he can't speak well enough he should not be teaching.
An top of all of this, the technologies being tought resemble the tech industry in the late 90's, not the late 00's. Almost all of the faculty leans towards Linux but when it comes to the actual curriculum, ASP.NET, Visual Basic, Java, and MS-SQL. All tools in the programmer's toolbox have their place, including Microsoft ones but can we please have some diversity and common sense? Teach whatever is most in demand in the industry. Not simply what has always been in the curriculum. I'm glad to say that some of the faculty is listening and I'll be teaching a seminar on PHP & AJAX w/ Prototype in April.
What does all this essentially mean?
I see the talented and smart professionals in our industry continually go out of school and move on giving nothing back to the educational community. This essentially means a brain drain in our universities being caused by talent simply being hired off and who teaches the next generation? The same old mid-range people.
Granted I'm talking about a pretty weak university in the grand scheme of things but it's the middle and bottom universities that form the bulk of the work industry in the world. Not the Harvards, MITs, and Stanfords.
Big Business + Computer Skills = $$$ (Score:3, Interesting)
I know there's always talk about programming jobs being outsourced. Get a degree in business and maybe minor in CS (or vice versa) and you will be an extremely marketable person. We hired on a contract programmer a couple years ago into our group. He has the same responsibilities as the rest of us (although his specific area isn't as difficult as others) and he also programs many small applications for us to make the tedious work managable.
Prove that you can work with MS Access or MS Excel or write small applications and you will become an office hero.
I've done pretty well for myself since graduating almost 4 years ago, but if I had to do it over again I would've taken some CS related classes.
My Advice To Those Thinking About It (Score:5, Insightful)
- the IT field is one of the hardest hit in case of a recession; this means that when things go bad they go really bad
- if it isn't a passion of your you will not enjoy it; it's long hours and crunch time exists almost always
- most programmers I've seen in my 12 years of programming have burned out and done other stuff instead. They would have been better off studying in a field they liked because now it's too late for them to tackle their true career of choice
- money isn't all it's cracked up to be in the IT field but it varies more than with many other jobs. For example someone passionate with great talent can get paid twice what another senior gets. In some parts of North America the salary is as low as 35k/year.
- if you want to hit the higher salaries you have to specialize into something and become a well known expert. This means blogging about your skill and doing presentations at conferences.
- your brain deteriorates with time and you can't code as fast as you could when you were 10 years younger. Getting old in our field is worse than it is in others. Even venture capitalists expect to invest in young talent. This means your window of opportunity is small.
You must answer a resounding yes to the following questions:
Do you code one week ends? Do you write software for fun? Do you enjoy sitting down and thinking really hard for long periods of time?
If that suits you then take the blue pill.
Don't Come Back (Score:5, Insightful)
Science yuk. Give me play. (Score:5, Insightful)
So I took Geology.
Science = The collective discipline of study or learning acquired through the scientific method; the sum of knowledge gained from such methods and discipline. A small and specialized subject.
I hope something comes out where I can play. Because play is natural learning.
Interest in Web 2.0 vs Web 1.0 (Score:4, Interesting)
There might be new interest from the latest surge of robotics, but that's mainly done in Europe & once Dubya is gone, there won't be any more military robots h.e.r.e...
Silicon Valley is slow & stodgy about new territory. It's going to be Web scripts for a long time.
PhD-granting universities (Score:4, Insightful)
Has more to do with H1-B visas drying up (Score:3)
Has the job market for CS grads changed? (Score:3, Informative)
I wonder who those "experts" are? I also wonder if the grads are Americans, or if they are just training in the USA.
Is the market for CS grads getting better? I sure don't see it. Salaries seem to be stagnant, job requirements seem to be way up, the IT field looks more demanding, and less secure, than ever.
Companies are breaking their necks to hire more H1Bs, and to offshore more jobs. Traditional barriers to offshoring jobs are being broken down.
Other countries are cranking out CS grads at a furious rate. And those grads are happy to work for $5 an hour, or less.
Of course, a CS degree could be valuable. But it's hard for me to imagine that a CS degree is the best thing an intelligent, ambitious, American can do with his/her life.
Am I wrong? Am I missing something?
Obligatory (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd like to welcome you to this course on Computer Science. Actually that's a terrible way to start, Computer Science is a terrible name for this business. First of all, it's not a Science. It might be engineering or it might be art, although we'll actually see that Computer (so-called) "Science" actually has a lot in common with magic. And you'll see that in this course
So it's not a Science. It's also not really very much about Computers. Computer Science is not about computers in the same way that Physics is not about particle accelerators and Biology is not really about microscopes and petri dishes.
-- Hal Abelson, professor MIT - Lecture 1a: Overview and Introduction to Lisp
Let me know when... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Computer Science in HS (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not rude, but I have serious objections with calling "programming" the equivalent of "computer science". I had the sad experience of being a high school teacher and they called "computer science" (or at least the equivalent of that in my language) courses that covered Word, Excel and Access.
Besides, programming is not computer science. Computer science can be learned entirely with pen and paper. Programming is going to be a tad harder to learn without actually trying what you wrote. (1,2,3....Cue
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)