Why do so few people major in computer science?

Emphasis on "can make" is due in this case. It's still a different dynamic with respect to status and a different pay scale in general (that is to say, exceptions of course exist).

A video game console has a known and proven entertainment value. The whole family can use it. It's a reason for people to come over to your house. It's a status symbol.

Beyond that, I know a lot of poor kids who don't have video game consoles, and there literally isn't $50 in the budget for something that may or may not produce any value (not to mention the monitor, the peripherals, and taking up vast amounts of time on the family computer -- if one exists -- to figure out how to use it).

I have extended family living in rural Utah who don't even have a computer -- they use their phones for the Internet. You can debate back and forth about the cost of a phone vs. the cost of a cheap Desktop, but people need phones to function in society, for better or worse. Try figuring out what to do with a bottom tier smartphone, a limited data plan, and a Rasberry Pi that just arrived in the mail.

I volunteer at the Boston Museum of Science, working in the Tech Studio/engineering department, often showing off the latest "engineering toys" -- Little Bits, Rasberry pi, Scratch on an iPad that controls a Lego robot... Rich kid parents ask "Oh, where can I get this?" It's not a big deal for them to drop a couple hundred bucks on flavor-of-the-week programming toys. Poor kid parents are often interested and enjoy playing around with it at the Museum, but never ask about getting one themselves. It doesn't even occur to them.

Beyond THAT, there are a lot of majors that don't cost a lot of money. You can use the argument "X doesn't cost much to learn -- why haven't you done X before on your own time?" to apply to anyone.

I am a little surprised by so many comments talking about the problems with the CS curriculum in college. If people aren't even majoring in computer science then I would first think that the issue starts before students come to college.

Younger students, K-12, have little exposure to computer science concepts or even programming in general. Sure some schools are great but many public schools in the US are average at best.

Many engineering fields (including CS in some contexts) have a huge dependency on experimental setups that are "temperamental" at best much of the time and/or dependent on someone else's experimental work and other hardware that doesn't always perform according to spec, etc.

As someone with degrees in non-CS engineering fields, I mostly find the idea that programming on a stable computer has a high frustration/grief factor to be pretty funny.

to be fair, I've been coding for 8 years and have never coded in a Windows operating system outside of an IDE, and in general I don't use either, and have not since Computer Science 1.

For a job, I had to get python working on Windows, and it took me a few days to get it in stalled correctly on Windows. Even after years of coding experience.

The issue with Windows is it is designed to explicitly hide the backend functionality, and modular accessing and modifying of it to the front end user, so when you do need to do something of the sort, it's more difficult than linux, and even after using linux operating systems, macbooks I find difficult to work with because comustomizable things are hidden to the average mac user.

That being said, a linux operating system is probably daunting for a first timer.

HOW I LEARNED COMPUTER SCIENCE

I only minored in Computer Science, and like others, did not even know what it was until I went to a tech college for Electrical Engineering. I grew up in the deep south low on the socioeconomic scale, noone in my family even went to college ever so I just had had no exposure to computers or even the idea of computer science before.

It seemed cool but daunting.

1. I got a part time job in tech support to help myself get acquainted with the parts of computers and technology that you need to learn so that when you do Computer Science you can focus on Computer Science.

That side job was 15hours a week over two years and it helped me learn alot about troubleshooting, viruses, computers, I reimaged hundreds of computers and learned how to make my own isos, take apart and put together computers.

It made my computer science courses in relation seem ideal and the technical bottlenecks of working in different environments whether operating systems, relatively trivial but yeh, I had to double up on my time commitments and turn my college job into tech work to catch up.

2. once I learned what a linux operating system was, I started using only minimal versions of linux, so I would be forced to learn more about how computers work to do everyday needed tasks, along with all over layered projects and school work on it. This helps ALOT.

You want to print something, you need to install or update the drivers, you want a functionality that you didn't know could never not exist on a computer, now you learn how to figure out what to download, what rpms are learn alot about options you have from opensource packages many people have made.

Now you are aware of hundreds of gaps/needs in functionality that have not been written so you could try something and have a realistic project to work on.

You have access to other peoples code...etc...

All of this from googling about printing drivers and why you have access denied....

the learning curve is steep but its hard to learn about this world any other way.

WHY I DID NOT MAJOR IN COMPUTER SCIENCE

In regards to Computer Science, there were a few reasons I did not end up majoring in it despite really liking it, and now taking coursera courses from Stanford and Princeton to supplement my desire 5 years post graduating to go back and learn more and shift to full time software development.

As a disclaimer, these are all really a result of my mental approach/reaction to a growing desire to learn more Computer Science.

1. I really didn't have the self esteem that I could do it in four years.

I knew I could excel at Electrical Engineering, but Computer Science seemed like a whole new world I could not learn in four years.

2. I went to a pretty good engineering school, and the kids in Computer Science had basically been coding since they were 8, so for me I felt like the competition was high and I could not stand a chance.

3. In retrospect that was not the case, and in fact the people I did know in Computer Science were very welcoming and encouraging to me coming into it, but I really didn't believe I could do it.

I regret that approach now, and I could blame it on all things academia in Computer Science, but it was really my reaction to the sentiment echoed here already that it takes years to really feel comfortable with Computers, programming and all of it in context so you aren't constantly wondering what youre not understanding or spending hours trying to set up varied work environments because you've never used a terminal before.

It is a continual effort and Computer Science, more than any other major or practice, is a new lifestyle and way of thinking, and a lifelong commitment to learning.

For me, I have continued on this path and continued to code for years after college and work on independent and group projects, and taken on coding work in my jobs in relation to electrical engineering. Just now at 26, being first exposed to Computer Science at 18, do I feel confident about my ability to learn and do well as a software engineer that is not a code monkey, working on computationally challenging problems where scaling, algorithms and data structures are a core part of design and implementation to make something successful.

You just have to keep trying, and in general, in regards to computer science or elsewhere, this weeds out alot of people.

SOME INTERESTING THINGS

As a final note, I would say the most daunting part of Computer Science in college was the perception I had about the experience and practice of Computer Science majors versus mine. I felt really ignorant in comparison and had no realistic way to convince myself I could compete and do well amongst kids with 10+ years experience.

Perhaps the value of this post is to say. I overcame alot of obstacles socioeconomic and otherwise to get into college in the first place.

I made a 4.0 in a private high end highschool and had and have a good work ethic and intelligence.

I even went to an engineering school and majored in Engineering.

Despite all of these layers of statistical thinning, I still didn't feel I could cut it as a CompSci.

If it is challenging for someone who is otherwise very smart, exceeding well by all academic metrics, has a good work ethic and is already in a school offering a good Computer Science program, wants to learn Computer Science, takes entry level Computer Science courses and makes As in them, and still doesnt feel confident about Computer Science, then there is definitely something about Computer Science, that sets the barrier high for learning.

It's definitely a DIFFERENT way of thinking, and I think the barrier to that new way of thinking is not a barrier for learning in most other places perhaps maybe save linguistics, which is also extremely difficult to become proficient in if you did not grow up in a multilinguistic environment or are not constantly saturated in living in a multilinguistic community.

You need to saturate yourself in a new way of thinking, and for me it is incredibly rewarding and translates into every other part of my life and allows me to think more objectively and logicially, creatively and efficiently than I have knew I could, but I think it is the way of thinking that is the learning barrier, along with the multilayered skills needed to navigate complex computing environments, that keeps people from Computer Science.