

Computer science enrollments soared 30% last year - samkline
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9237459/Computer_science_enrollments_soared_last_year_rising_30_

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ams6110
Anecdotally, as a part-time sysadmin at a university I've seen more than a few
examples of "students" in a computer science Master's degree program who are
obviously in it for the perceived job opportunities. But they don't seem to
actually care about the subject. They copy and paste code from google search
results and if it doesn't work they are helpless. They don't make any effort
to understand what is happening or why, or how to resolve their problems. They
just complain that the systems "aren't working."

Something as simple as generating an ssh key pair and using it for
authentication leaves them completely bamboozled. By their questions it is
clear that most haven't bothered to learn anything about it.

They don't care about security, performance, best practices, or anything but
completing their problem sets and projects and getting their degree.

I don't understand the thinking in getting into a career field that you have
no intrinsic interest in. And how they think they are going to get past even a
half-hearted technical interview is beyond me.

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shubhamjain
Whats your country? I thought that was scenario of only India.

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dhaivatpandya
It happens here, but, I think to a lesser extent.

India is just insane - 99% of people are in "IT" or "Computer Science" or
"Software Engineering" solely because of the initial wave of people who made
it to the United States as programmers.

~~~
shubhamjain
You might be true but I think people here don't really care about being
"programmers". They are non-passionate idiots who just want a job that can
feed a family of four.

The so called IT revolution companies promise tons of jobs for these CS grads.

~~~
suresk
The problem with this attitude is that these same "idiots" also get called out
when they follow their non-STEM passions in fields that don't have nearly the
expected economic return that STEM fields so. Just watch any thread on college
degrees/education.

What is a person with no interest or aptitude in STEM fields to do?

~~~
redschell
I always thought it was a good idea to major in what you love and then minor
or double major in something that can get you a leg up in the job hunt. So if
psychology is your thing, and you're really serious about succeeding there, do
a second major in, say, statistics. That should give you a nice advantage in
doing and interpreting research, and if you decide that clinical psychology or
whatever isn't really your thing, being able to do statistics is a pretty
desirable skill. You might not get a big data job with it, but it's not a bad
investment.

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kirinan
Computer Science is a very interesting degree. Having done the program myself,
you learn math you will never use* and ton of other things that can be counted
as useless, however I am better for it. Calculus taught me less about how to
do Calculus (I don't remember how to do an integral, but I don't get paid to
do that), but it did teach me how to study properly and that grinding (hard
work) really can solve some issues you have. Discrete Mathematics taught me to
look deeper into things, and not just observe the first thing you see as the
conclusion. Overall, I went into Computer Science wanting to learn how to
program and left not learning how to code from the program (I worked full time
as a software engineer through school) but I learned valuable skills that have
helped me get where I am today. If you are thinking about not going to college
(college is not for everyone*), I suggest you do. College isnt about what
books can teach you (you can read those), its about the experiences that you
gain (like my stories above), the people you meet and the bonds that you make.
That is what makes it all worth it!

~~~
purplelobster
I don't get this at all. I need my understanding of calculus, trig, discrete
mathematics, probability/stats and especially linear algebra. Then again I do
computer vision, but even building web apps (that do something non-trivial) in
my spare time I end up using that knowledge. Basically, build trivial stuff
(simple UIs and a RoR backend?) and you probably don't need math. For anything
else, you'll be stuck without it. If you can't follow a research paper in
computer science or some domain knowledge needed for the job, then you won't
be able to do your job.

~~~
RougeFemme
I'm not a programmer but. . .unless you're coding an explicitly math-intensive
application, aren't there tools that could do any math that's required? Of
course, the tool would have to come from a trusted source.

~~~
jfarmer
If you don't know the math, how do you see what math applies?

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aed
I'm really starting to wonder if we're in a "developer bubble."

Everyone wants to learn to code. Every other week there's a blog post on "why
everyone should learn to code." Last year, NYC Mayor Bloomberg posted his new
years resolution was to learn to code[0]. Soaring enrollments is just another
sign.

[0] <https://twitter.com/Codecademy/status/155038379216609280>

~~~
ebiester
We're seeing the start again. It's happened before.

Talk to some of the old timers who were there for the early 1990s before the
web. Eventually, businesses are going to have their must-do bespoke
applications done, or there will be enough powerful packaged applications that
do what all these bespoke apps are doing now.

And we'll again have a mass migration from tech, until the next great thing
comes along.

I think of it as a series of gold rushes. The good news is I think we may have
a good 40 years before the gravy train runs out.

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tokenadult
This reminds me of a story that I heard last summer,

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4603414>

later confirmed here on HN by the hiring supervisor who observed the problem,

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4919749>

that many CS grads, even CS grads with master's degrees, can't get through a
hiring screen that includes the question, "Write a loop that displays the
numbers 1 to 100." Yes, something that simple is something too hard for many
computer science graduates who are seeking jobs after graduation.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why you can't suppose that a computer
science degree indicates ANYTHING about a job applicant's suitability to work
for you. If you want to hire a programmer who will program well for you, test
the job applicant's programming skill during the hiring process by having the
applicant do a sample of the work you expect the programmer to do after the
programmer is hired. In general, for hiring for any job, don't worry about
degrees, but be sure to ask for a work-sample test.

References for why it's a good idea to hire on the basis of work-sample
testing rather than on the basis of college degrees can be found in my
extensive FAQ on the subject, written for Hacker News threads about hiring.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4613543>

LAST EDIT: As I expected, people still don't believe this story. I thought it
was rather amazing when I heard it. But, with further thought, I've decided
that this really is an empirical issue. It may be that some jobs have less
drawing power, and attract mostly applicants who are trying to get a green
card to stay in the United States. (That seems to be one thing going on in the
applicant pool for the job that had the hiring process, with two computers
sharing screen views over the Internet as the applicant worked on the problem,
described here.) The way to find out what applicants to the job you offer can
do is to put them to a work-sample test, realistic for the job you want done.
I hear that FizzBuzz is still screening out a LOT of applicants for some jobs,

<http://www.globalnerdy.com/2012/11/15/fizzbuzz-still-works/>

but FizzBuzz isn't a lot harder than "write a for loop," and certainly ought
to be a job test that any CS graduate could pass. Try the people who next come
to your workplace looking for a job, and see what they can do.

~~~
vitno
I was just the TA for a CS class. I don't know any students, even the ones who
struggle the most in the Introductory CS sequence, who can't do that. I'd say
even those that failed the course can probably do that...

~~~
jurassic
But what level institution are you at? I can easily imagine weak second and
third tier CS students who can't code their way out of a paper bag. It looks
like Reddit's r/cscareerquestions/ gets questions from a lot of these type of
people.

~~~
suresk
I have a hard time believing the claim. I've certainly seen a fair share of
new graduates disappointingly lacking in certain areas (for some reason, this
seems to be especially true of those who hold a Masters degree but have no
work experience), but managing to graduate without knowing how to do a simple
for loop is really, really hard to believe.

The only way I think that would happen would be if they were fairly weak to
begin with and had a ton of performance anxiety, but I'd expect that to be
exceptionally rare.

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null_ptr
How many of them will go through all four years and complete the degree? Based
on experience from my undergrad, quite a few switch majors after 1st or 2nd
year, and most of those who stick with it purposefully choose the absolute
minimum CS/math that's required by the major, so that alone should give you an
idea about the quality of most grads.

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jacques_chester
I suspect it'll be like the dotcom bubble: zillions of students signing up
because they heard you can get rich this way (and by happy coincidence you
don't need the high scores needed to get into law or medicine).

Eventually there's a popping noise and such folk leave the industry for
sunnier pastures. The rest of us go back to being wildly unpopular and
bickering amongst ourselves about the finer points of ... well, everything.

~~~
invalidOrTaken
Here's a question: Imagine this new bubble has just popped, 5 or 50 years from
now. What do people looking to both learn something of substance and be highly
compensated for it study? Biotech? Engineering? Materials science?

~~~
wissler
Ideally look at the kinds of problems that are difficult and important and
that we have a long way to go in, such as nanotech, biotech, and materials
science. Compensation ought to be more or less irrelevant, you just want to do
something worthwhile and get paid enough that you can keep doing it.

~~~
barry-cotter
Bzzt. Idealism and an accompanying implicit ideology detected. Naked apes
strive after status, prestige, respect, all of which are similar enough and
all of which make money easier to get.

~~~
wissler
Speak for yourself, cynic.

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31reasons
I think if you are not a super talented programmer, software development could
be the least rewarding of most high skill professions unless you augment those
skills with the skills from other fields.

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ovoxo
I honestly wonder how many were influenced by movie The Social Network.

~~~
Trezoid
Or the billion dollar purchase of instagram.

People hear "A billion dollars" and immediately want in to whatever got
someone that much money.

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drucken
"Fashions" like these are disasterous.

Many of those students do not realise that a straight mathematics degree has
been proven for many decades to be far more valuable, flexible in a larger
variety of careers, and even significantly more enjoyable (across the breadth
of a career) until it is far too late.

The only silver lining is that the US university system is remarkably flexible
and so being able to change major(s) reduces the risks somewhat.

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aortega
Protip: Computer science is not coding. Also it is not a science, it is a
branch of math.

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capkutay
Many students take one or two classes before they realize its not like any
subject they have encountered before and inability to independently figure out
difficult problems leads to F's in the class.

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obstacle1
Measuring enrollments has always been not-so-useful in CS. Let's wait and see
if 2016 attrition skyrocket in tandem with 2012 enrolments, as I suspect will
happen.

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chewxy
I wonder what the attrition rate would be.

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christiangenco
Supply/demand.

~~~
31reasons
The market is working hard to keep the developer salaries under 6 figures :)

