Fewer CS Grads is a Good Thing
My mom is a Comp Sci instructor at Norfolk State, and being the concerned educator that she is, she forwarded me this article regarding trends in her field.
To sum it up, the number of CS majors in the US has been in a downward spiral over the past few years. Between 200 and 2004, the number of college freshman listing computer science as their probable major fell by 70%.
This isn’t breaking news - back in early ‘04, I’d coordinated a speaking tour for Bill Gates, during which he attempted to drum up interest in CS as a major. Fast forward through two additional years of software experience, and I’ve got to wonder whether this is still a cause for concern.
In the past, Computer Science was more of an esoteric science - the inner workings of programming were borderline black magic to the common man. These days, nearly every other punk kid on MySpace knows at least a little HTML, and probably a bit of scripting as well. The proliferation of blogging, personal websites and graphics design leads me to believe that CS is going the way of the liberal arts - you no longer need to study it in an academic environment to build a career in it. Just because you didn’t major in English doesn’t mean you can’t write.
The very first day of CS 101 at Penn, there were nearly 800 students present, filling every seat in the lecture hall and spilling over into the stairs as well. By the time midterms rolled around, at least 50% of the students had dropped the course. Of the students in attendance on that first day, maybe a third actually received degrees in the field. When you combine this with the results of the Middlesex Tests, you quickly realize the students who remain are the ones who are seriously interested in the subject, the ones who are truly meant to be there.
These special few now have better opportunities to learn because the professors can now focus on the brightest, most dedicated students. I won’t delve into the details of Brooks’ Law, suffice it to say the Silicon Valley has proven time and time again that a few brilliant hackers are significantly more valuable than a stable of mediocre programmers.
What this all means is that while we’re getting fewer CS grads, the overall pool of programming talent in the US remains the same, if its not in fact growing. Mom, Bill, you can both rest easy.
24 Aug 2006 Dan
I don’t think that CS is going the way of liberal arts, but more that people are realizing that CS is considerably more involved than programming (which, by itself, doesn’t require a CS degree) in general, and even programming itself is more complicated than most people are willing to endure, as your UPenn anecdote shows. Also worth noting is the dot-com bust that hit around 2000 (I could be off by a year or two). Prior to that, companies were snapping up anyone with a hint of programming ability for hefty pay, and when that well dried up, so did the pool of students that saw a CS degree as an easy meal-ticket.
I see programming as the analogous tip of the iceberg that is Computer Science - anyone can blog or make a personal webpage with some scripting, but it takes a bit more know-how to create a new programming language or write real-time missle guidance software. It’s similar to the difference between an auto mechanic that works on cars, and a mechanical engineer that designs them.
Regardless, less CS grads mean less competition for jobs - bad for employers, good for employees (like myself). This means higher pay, but also means that employers will most likely seek more H1-B Visa workers to compensate, which also seems to be a trend in this field.