Where Did All The CS Students Go?

from the chemistry? dept

The NY Times has written an article about the rapid decrease in the number of computer science students in the last few years. Of course, this shouldn't be a huge surprise. During the boom years, plenty of people went into CS, because they thought that was where the money was - and not because they particularly enjoyed computer science. Now, most of those people are gone (though, the article suggests many of them have moved on to sciences like chemistry and biology - believing biotech is the next big moneymaking field). Of course, I have mixed opinions on this. Generally speaking, I don't think people who go into a field just because of the money are doing it for the right reason. They're usually not as motivated or skilled as people who go into a field because they find it fun, exciting, or interesting. So, the students in the field now are ones who really want to be there - and that's good. At the same time, many schools are encouraging the kids to be more well-rounded, and getting them to minor in other fields (like business administration) to get have a broader base of knowledge. There's a side article about how Carnegie Mellon is trying to get more women into computer science that refers to the "dave-to-girl ratio" of how many guys named dave there are to women in the program - and point out there was a point where it was over one.
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  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 22 May 2003 @ 2:06am

    Who cares....

    ...everyone knows the real money is in EE (besides, you can minor in CS if you *really* want to have that CS degree).

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 22 May 2003 @ 2:08am

    perhaps it's due to...

    ...all those CS majors who graduated, got a job, had kids who grew up seeing first hand just how hard their dad's job sucked.

    ...yeah, that would pretty much explain it.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 22 May 2003 @ 2:08am

    maybe...

    ...women are smarter than men.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    dorpus, 22 May 2003 @ 4:41am

    Jocks, Artists, and Scientists

    all share a common trait: plenty of people want to become professional athletes/artists/scientists, but only a few superstars will make it big. The vast majority of wannabes will rot away as high school teachers, misleading the next generation of youth into "pursuing their dreams". I don't know why anyone thinks there is a shortage of scientists; every grad school accepts only a small portion of applicants, and even then there is a huge surplus of under-employed, bitter graduate students who end up pursuing other careers.


    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 22 May 2003 @ 6:37am

    No Subject Given

    Could it be that most of the CS jobs seem to be headed to off shore outsourcing houses therefore their piece of paper would worth as much as a degree in ... sociology ?

    Get a degree in CS and go to work at the local Wal-mart ? Not a future most want to embrace right now.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    kai, 22 May 2003 @ 2:19pm

    C.S. degree numbers

    I thought they were constantly dropping nation-wide, even during the tech boom. I think the trend has largely been downward for the past 10 years. During the tech boom, you didn't need a CS degree to get a programming job!

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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