I wonder if this is a US or global phenomenon, I would love to see numbers from the rest of the world.
Why do so few people major in computer science? (2017)
61–70 of 452 posts
Re: Why do so few people major in computer science? (2017)
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think people are impressed by the big names, but not so much if you work for an enterprise SaaS provider.
People have heard of and will probably be at least mildly impressed by the big consumer-facing FAANGs plus maybe a few others like Microsoft, IBM, etc.. But Oracle, Salesforce, SAP (to say nothing of a myriad of other software and hardware companies)? The average person hasn't even heard of most of them.
And if they have heard of them it’ll be like “oh, [software], that thing the data entry guy uses? Cool, I guess...” I mean, how impressed would you be meeting a guy who works at a big office supply company? Most software, to the users, is equivalent to other basic office tools like pens and staplers (except more frustrating to use). It doesn’t exactly have that wow factor.
Re: Why do so few people major in computer science? (2017)
#63The perception of computer science is slowly changing as it seeps into popular culture through TV and Film. As that changes more status conscious people will take CS, they will then be depicted in TV and film and you get a snowball effect.
Re: Why do so few people major in computer science? (2017)
#64There's one other possible, additional reason. I recently asked a 17-year-old high school senior who is heading to college what she's planning to study, and she said it would be mathematics, biomedical engineering, or some other kind of engineering. She's self-motivated -- says she will be studying multi-variate calculus, PDEs, and abstract algebra on her own this summer. She maxed out her high school math curriculum…
That pretty much lays out one of the more standard explanations for why more women don't go into CS.
Things arguably changed in the early 80s with the rise of PCs and gaming. While programming certainly existed before that, it wasn't something that most kids were exposed to in high school and CS curricula in general were heavily theory oriented and often in the Math department.
Today, if you want to be a mechanical engineering major there's no expectation that you lived in a machine shop all through high school or otherwise spent all your spare time in hobbies related to your college major.
Whereas, a lot of CS curricula today at least implicitly assume that you're comfortable with computer command lines, basic programming, etc. And, if not, you'd better get up to speed in a big hurry. Because most people in your class are up to speed and program for fun. I went through a MOOC from MIT a while back (6.001) and I can't begin to imagine working through that from a baseline of maybe one high school course.
ADDED: And, of course, you periodically see a similar attitude reflected on forums like this one when people argue that they won't hire someone without a GitHub repo who programs for fun nights and weekends.
Re: Why do so few people major in computer science? (2017)
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure what you're saying here, that you don't need formal education to do software engineering? I mean on the one side I agree with you because there's so much you can learn online right now, but the same is true for other branches of engineering and STEM as a whole.
Less that you don't need education and more that the education of a CS degree has little relation to the practice of software development. It's probably improved, but when I was in college 20 years ago CS was something you did abstractly on a whiteboard, it's computer SCIENCE. That's certainly valuable to society as a whole and certain fields, but it has little bearing on building websites or business CRUD or other t…
It is often used to check if a candidate can master complex topics, but I would disagree that formal education doesn't help for software engineering.
Asked the other way around, what would you suggest as education for someone who wants to be a software engineer?
Re: Why do so few people major in computer science? (2017)
#66I know CS majors learn a lot of details about how programs work, but they don't teach science.
I think there is a very small group of people who like tech, but are okay with not learning science and difficult mathematics.
I do wish there was a software engineering degree.
Re: Why do so few people major in computer science? (2017)
#67I don't think CS is a high social status field at all . You're deluding yourselves. Outside of our peers also in the industry nobody cares that you're a staff engineer at Google. Absolutely nobody. They'll assume you're doing IT work like the characters in the IT Crowd if they even bother to think about it at all and haven't already walked away. Here's a concrete example to make it really obvious. How many computer s…
Is the social status of computer scientists zero, or do computer scientists choose not to go into politics or other leadership positions? I suspect it's the latter [anecdotal; opinion; citation needed]. CS people are a tribe on their own (if I may generalize); I've not met anyone with an interest in participating in politics. They have strong opinions on politics, but not to the point where they're willing to represe…
Scientists - not just CS, but biologists, chemists, etc. - are not in elected leadership positions very much. I agree they are frequently not willing to represent. But again - why?
A few opinions:
* scientists (computer, life, or otherwise) do not think their talents are best used in making public policy. There are so many other ways those talents and intelligence could be used
* perhaps worse pay (though the benefits, and opportunity for jobs after elected office, are certainly stellar)
* the process seems toxic compared to other ways to make a living
The first and last bullets seem the most important to me. Business and academia have some similarities with government, since in both cases they involve:
* writing, with the intent to better the world somehow
* raising money, whether from selling a product, grants, or donors
* using evidence to decide what to do next
The day-to-day work seems reasonably desirable, but the way that work must be done is, I think, the dealbreaker for many scientists.
At a company, everyone you work with on a daily basis is generally in step with the overall vision. Some teammates may differ on details - which language or data store, how to architect something - but the goal of the finished solution is mostly in agreement.
In government, there are at least two groups of people who publicly profess to have VERY different ideas about what the finished solution should accomplish. And even if you get elected on the team you think has the best goals, you may no get to work towards those goals directly, since the other team might have the majority of seats.
I have so many more thoughts on this, but I'll save that for a blog post. I'm curious what others think of this though.
Re: Why do so few people major in computer science? (2017)
#68I myself have Bachelors and Masters in Computer Science degree with 11+ years of full-time industry experience (Canada) and here is my opinion about popularity of computer science degree:
- What is the point of getting a Computer Science degree when the people sitting besides you are also Tech Team Leads or Sr. Developers or Architects without a computer science degree?
- Why bother spending so many years going through theoretical computer science courses when you could have gotten through some bootcamps, youtube vids, Leetcode, and spent time creating github portfolio? Ultimately its the frameworks (and sometimes certs.) which gets you the money. There is a reason why even Google dropped the 'degree' requirements for their Software Engineering positions.
- When it comes to corporate IT: Among the most glorified of CS/IT career is that of a Software Developer (coding). And if I was to be biased, I would say those who didn't get CS degree and instead went to Community College for programming diplomas tend to better at picking up frameworks and churning out code. It seems that their minds are less cluttered with useless technical details which nobody in Corporate IT cares about.
- Frankly speaking, Programming and even other CS fields (including niche ones such as Data Science / AI / Machine Learning) suffer from absence of licensing requirements. I am not advocating for one but from what I have seen, just about any office job outside of IT has set of licensing requirements (PEng, LLB, CFA, CPA, Securities course, etc.) and atleast in Canada, they want the "Canadian version" of CPA, CFA, etc. -- this ensures that new immigrants can't just walk into such Canadian jobs and safeguards them against offshoring to an extent.
Despite all this, I am still glad that I have my CS degrees because that is just me, it's fits my thought process and personality. I really didn't do it for the money. I just feel I couldn't have done any other degree besides a CS degree - it's not about harder or easier.
Re: Why do so few people major in computer science? (2017)
#69I don't think CS is a high social status field at all . You're deluding yourselves. Outside of our peers also in the industry nobody cares that you're a staff engineer at Google. Absolutely nobody. They'll assume you're doing IT work like the characters in the IT Crowd if they even bother to think about it at all and haven't already walked away. Here's a concrete example to make it really obvious. How many computer s…
I don’t think it’s just that, I think it’s also the perception that computer science = programming. And programming isn’t a career, it’s a job you do for a decade or two before you get too old or move on to management. And if you’re planning on management anyways, why not start with a degree for that?
Re: Why do so few people major in computer science? (2017)
#70Easy. The educational aspect is pretty awful. And after you get through that, the big companies treat you like a leper unless you went through a few chosen schools. I went to a big state school in the 90s. The first two years were a hazing, with a brutal curve designed to drop class size from 1000+ (CSI 200) to about 80 graduates. It was sink or swim and awarded grit. The only major worse was biology where organic ch…
> the big companies treat you like a leper unless you went through a few chosen schools. I was under the impression that they didnt care about your background, but you had to slave away on leetcode to have a chance to pass the interviews.
My point of view may be outdated. Back when we were walking to school uphill both ways, you needed the right paper.