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Why do so few people major in computer science?

danwang.co

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Re: Why do so few people major in computer science?

#211

Post by vilhelm_s »

dahart wrote: post #130

Whoa, that chart seems really misleading. There are 3x more CS majors than math majors and 2x more than physics. The chart is showing derivatives, not absolutes. That basically undermines the title of the article. Looking at the graph, it's also super important to see the context before 2005 -- that start date adds significantly to the misleading impression this graph is giving. Math had more majors in 1970 than it d…

Yeah, exactly. He writes "What deters them from studying this exciting, high-wage profession? Why do they go into math, physics, or engineering in higher numbers instead?", but students absolutely do not go into math or physics in higher numbers.

I'm not very surprised by that: not very many people are smart enough to do math or physics, while computer science is much easier.

Meanwhile, the fields that are larger than CS are the engineering and biomedical ones. I feel this is a bit vulnerable to how you slice it though, e.g. the number of CS graduates are presumably more numerous than any particular type of engineering (mechanical engineering etc). It's a bit of an accident that all those fields are grouped together and computer science is not. (This could have been otherwise, e.g. in Sweden you can study both of an MEng in "software engineering" or a BA in computer science, and the content is quite similar.)

Re: Why do so few people major in computer science?

#212

Post by SamReidHughes »

elsombrero wrote: post #174
lordnacho wrote: post #107

The grief factor of learning to code is on a different scale to every other major. One missing semicolon will take your whole tower down, and you realise this in the first day of practical exercises. Even if you are of the opinion that CS is math, and coding doesn't come into it, you will hit a coding wall early on. In fact, every exercise in CS has this problem. You add a new thing (eg inheritance), and it breaks. B…

>The grief factor of learning to code is on a different scale to every other major. One missing semicolon will take your whole tower down, and you realise this in the first day of practical exercises >In fact, every exercise in CS has this problem. You add a new thing (eg inheritance), and it breaks. But not only that, it might be broken because of a banal little syntax problem. That can be said for math as well, swi…

The difference with math is, you can get partial credit.

Re: Why do so few people major in computer science?

#213

Post by lithos »

cynusx wrote: post #184

The whole idea that people pick their education based on rational assumptions when they are 18, know essentially nothing and are coming straight out of an environment where perceived status is all that matters on the playgrounds is ridiculous. The choice of what to study is not a rational decision but a social decision. People follow their friends, guys go study what the hottest girls he knows are going to study, par…

I exited out of IT programming degree for the military.

A big reason was I did math on what my future loans would mean to me to get a bachelor instead of just my associates.

Sweating through the nuke program for 3-4 more years (extra compared to college), having no debt at the end, and a program that if you complete it is more valuable than a lot of degrees.

It also seemed that there were two types of programmers. The Office Space guy, that is a cost to their company. And the Cult Of IT guy, that pretends to only think about IT. I wouldn't have the patience for the first, and after learning enough Lisp to make simple macros (and rip apart some of Paul Graham's mediumish ones) I realized that I just saw a system that does what it's told (and probably wouldn't be able to keep a straight face when Cult Of IT people worshipped beauty).

Re: Why do so few people major in computer science?

#214

Post by sidlls »

sbov wrote: post #208
sidlls wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, even in terms of tech jobs. Software just isn't as big a deal outside of these places.

I think the point is a huge number of tech jobs are within these locations. The SF bay area has something stupid like the top 3 cities when it comes to tech jobs. Throw out all the locations with the most jobs and surprise, salaries suck.

Well, I wouldn't say salaries "suck" outside of well-known tech centers like SF/Bay Area and NYC. They aren't great, though. Even in the Bay Area, at least, the salaries of engineers still pale in comparison to the salaries of managers and executives.

Re: Why do so few people major in computer science?

#215

Post by [deleted] »

gnodar wrote: post #63
simonsarris wrote: post #11

Slight note about Dan Wang picking 2005: That was the peak of CS degrees awarded because it's 4/5 years after the height of the dot-com bubble. So the upward bump in the mid-2000's is somewhat explainable as an anomaly. I think his point 1 is underrated. CS degrees are flat because aptitude is flat. You can compare CS degrees to other degrees over time at nsf.gov: https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/2016/nsb20161/#/report…

Interesting that in the nsf data it shows that during the 2000-2004 time frame the number of CS grads rose and then peaked in 2004, while the number of CS women grads during the same time frame was flat, and then dropped in 2004.

[deleted]

Re: Why do so few people major in computer science?

#216

Post by 01572 »

To an audience of CS majors this will probably sound like trolling but honestly I have never used any software written by a "computer scientist" that I came to value and rely on -- software that I consciously chose to use.

Whereas I have found such software on multiple ocassions written by mathematicians or persons in some other field, e.g., physics, etc.

As a user of software, I do not believe that a computer science degree is of any significance in terms of the ability to write good software.

The blog post makes a comparison to Liars Poker. Perhaps it should be noted that the author of Liars Poker majored in art history. It was not necessary for him to have a particular degree in finance to do his "job". That was the point of book.

The question to ask today is whether one needs a degree in CS to write good software.

Re: Why do so few people major in computer science?

#217

Post by zjaffee »

freyr wrote: post #169
ken47 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. The things you say may have been true decades ago, but are not entirely accurate today. The US's banking industry's reputation took a big hit in 2008, and it has become increasingly common for top university students to head into tech over finance since then. Not to mention, firms like Goldman Sachs are replacing many of their traditional traders with software engineers. Outside of top law schools, the pr…

Finance may have taken a hit recently, but if you're in the northeast (NYC, Boston, etc.), it still has much higher prestige. It also has a much, much higher compensation ceiling. The same goes for lawyers working in cities. Many law students are underemployed, but overall there's a much higher compensation ceiling. Management consultants weren't mentioned, but a large percentage of top grads end up there, being groo…

I agree that the software engineering profession isn't one with much prestige vested into it as a profession.

However, the technology industry, especially up and coming start-ups, and the established players like google,facebook, or apple are some of the most prestigious companies to work for, in some ways surpassing that of McKinsey or Goldman Sachs in the eyes of an everyday person.

Re: Why do so few people major in computer science?

#218

Post by curun1r »

cynusx wrote: post #184

The whole idea that people pick their education based on rational assumptions when they are 18, know essentially nothing and are coming straight out of an environment where perceived status is all that matters on the playgrounds is ridiculous. The choice of what to study is not a rational decision but a social decision. People follow their friends, guys go study what the hottest girls he knows are going to study, par…

> it is a relatively new field and it hasn't been embedded in society as high status yet

I'm not sure status plays into it, but I think you're onto something in that it's not fully established yet. If you want to be a doctor, you need an MD. If you want to be a lawyer, you need a JD. If you want to be an engineer in the physical world (civil, mechanical, nuclear, chemical, etc), you need that degree. But if you want to be a developer, you just need to demonstrate and ability to do it. You can have your degree in a completely different subject, and you're still able to get the job. I've even seen places that preferred hiring mechanical engineers and physics PhDs to write code. Likewise, there's no professional accreditation board and certifications are often viewed negatively by employers.

In time, as programming develops as a discipline, one of two things will happen. Either these barriers to entry into the field will spring up and the CS degree and subsequent licensing exam will become a prerequisite for working in the industry or programming will become a part of the curriculum for many other disciplines and the days of being a specialist in programming will he over. But it's still new enough that neither end state has been reached. And in the current state, the only purpose of a CS degree is to learn. On paper, after four years in college, you'll be a less desirable hire than someone who spent six months in a developer boot camp and then got 3+ years of industry experience.

I'm not saying a CS classes are worthless...I greatly enjoyed everything I learned in them and I feel I'm a better developer for having taken them. But the degree, itself, is no different than a math or physics degree when applying for work, so it shouldn't be a surprise that it's not as popular as a major.

Re: Why do so few people major in computer science?

#219

Post by pcunite »

01572 wrote: post #216

To an audience of CS majors this will probably sound like trolling but honestly I have never used any software written by a "computer scientist" that I came to value and rely on -- software that I consciously chose to use. Whereas I have found such software on multiple ocassions written by mathematicians or persons in some other field, e.g., physics, etc. As a user of software , I do not believe that a computer scien…

Programs that you enjoy using are put together by folks with the skills "product and user experience". If they know how to code, good.

Re: Why do so few people major in computer science?

#220

Post by armchair_hunter »

The chart shows degrees conferred, not how many people are enrolled in a degree. I've been teaching CS at universities since 2010 and I've seen a tremendous growth in CS enrollment. On the flip side, a large number of students fail.

This spring, I failed about about a third of my pupils in the intro class and in following data structure course. If this holds true for future semesters -as it has for the past few- only around half actually make it through data structures.

CS is hard, and not just because of how exacting the syntax is. It is completely new for many students. Engineering is hard, but a student has expectations they could draw on from math and physics. Same with biology related fields and chem related fields. There are expectations from high school a student can draw upon.

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