Interest in CS as a Major Drops
Interest in CS as a Major Drops:
According to an analysis of results from a survey conducted by HERI/UCLA, the percentage of incoming undergraduates indicating that they would major in CS declined by over 60 percent between the Fall of 2000 and 2004, and is now 70 percent lower than its peak in the early 1980s.
Alarmingly, interest in CS among women fell 80 percent between 1998 and 2004, and 93 percent since its peak in 1982.
Results from CRA’s Taulbee Survey show that the number of newly declared CS majors has declined for the past four years and is now 39 percent lower than in the Fall of 2000.
All told, a decline in undergraduate degree production is likely in the next decade.
The full article is here.
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it is probably because that other than to itself as a discipline, c.s. is not that innovative or interesting. tell a student that loves computers about your average c.s. curriculum and they will probably go find an information technology program or something. however, that c.s. is less interesting does not mean the full set of computing disciplines is losing interest… and i strongly suspect that they aren’t… it is just that c.s., like physics, has dug a nice deep hole for itself and is busy looking at walls of the hole.
