US CompSci Enrollment Leaps For 5th Straight Year

dcblogs writes "The number of new undergraduate computing majors in U.S. computer science departments increased more than 29% last year, a pace called 'astonishing' by the Computing Research Association. The increase was the fifth straight annual computer science enrollment gain, according to the CRA's annual survey of computer science departments at Ph.D.-granting institutions. The survey also found that more students are earning a Ph.D., with 1,929 degrees granted — an 8.2% increase over the prior year. The pool of undergraduate students represented in the CRA survey is 67,850. Of that number, 57,500 are in computer science."

Somewhat lame report

[Animats]

The "Computing Research Association" is a lobbying group. It's not on K Street NW in DC like most lobbyists. It's on L street, one block over. It's a lobby for federal funding for college CS departments.

Here's the actual report. [cra.org] Two charts are upside down. The focus is on race and gender. There's little discussion of CS vs IT vs EE vs CE degrees, although there are some separate table columns. Employment statistics are provided only for PhD graduates.

The data seems to be self-reported by the institutions involved.

Re:No jobs = hide in academia for a while.

[aztracker1]

Just a couple suggestions... most people in IT aren't very religious... I don't mind (lean deist myself), but some might... you may want to do some work on your personal website, assuming your name matches the site... It doesn't need to be perfect.. just a little nicer (there are templates to work with like bootstrap, even platforms like wordpress)... If you have personal projects to show off, etc.. throw them up on github (assuming you have the rights).

On your personal site, have an html copy of your resume, as well as a link to the MS-Word version. Name off every technology you've touched, and then in your work history, re-state what you've touched. If you aren't touching hardware, or interested in game dev, I would suggest picking up a more dynamic environment to program in. Flash is all but dead, though AS3 and JS correlate really well, and NodeJS, MongoDB, Web-UI dev is growing a lot, JS skills can get you placed... .Net, or Java will net higher pay, but the time to build experience may well not be worth it.

I am not sure where you are located, but in the US, if you have more than 5 years of experience, and are any good, you should be able to find work for more than $30/hr, and if you are really good, you shouldn't be making less than $50/hr (More in some locations). The dot-com bust was a long time ago.. I was down and out for a year.. took a couple jobs at less than half what I made before, kept options open, and was willing to change jobs for opportunity and more money. Note: I'm in Phoenix, AZ... I know of lots of places hiring just the same. If you're in the sticks move to one of the top 20 largest cities (US), and you will find better paying, decent work.