Computer science enrollments soared 30% last year

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

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!

I'm really starting to wonder if we're in a "developer bubble."<p>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.<p>[0] <a href="https://twitter.com/Codecademy/status/155038379216609280" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/Codecademy/status/155038379216609280</a>

This reminds me of a story that I heard last summer,<p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4603414" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4603414</a><p>later confirmed here on HN by the hiring supervisor who observed the problem,<p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4919749" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4919749</a><p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4613543" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4613543</a><p>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,<p><a href="http://www.globalnerdy.com/2012/11/15/fizzbuzz-still-works/" rel="nofollow">http://www.globalnerdy.com/2012/11/15/fizzbuzz-still-works/</a><p>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.

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.

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).<p>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.

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.

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

"Fashions" like these are disasterous.<p>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.<p>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.

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

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.

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.

I wonder what the attrition rate would be.

Supply/demand.