Posted on 06/27/2004 11:26:21 PM PDT by RussianConservative
The information technology slump has reached the halls of academia. Students who once flocked to computer-related majors are rethinking their plans. Informal surveys suggest enrollments of students majoring in computer science have declined 20 percent from the height of the boom, say faculty leaders.
Are comp-sci profs lamenting the trend? Guess again.
"Most faculty would say, 'Yippee!'" says Maria Klawe, dean of engineering and applied science at Princeton University and president of the ACM, a leading professional organization for computing.
Computer science departments were stretched thin by many IT wannabes who, according to their teachers, were drawn to the industry for the glitz of dotcoms and the potential for stock-option riches. They were not necessarily interested in computing as a profession, Klawe notes, adding, "Those students are being filtered out."
"There was a glamour associated with the computing field," says Stu Zweben, chairman of the Department of Computer and Information Science at Ohio State University. "Once that glamour wore off, and they heard stories about people with technical skills being laid off, they said, 'Whoa!' "
During the boom, universities struggled to handle the influx of students seeking to major in computer science and related disciplines. Ohio State, for instance, hiked the major's GPA cutoff to 3.2 -- it's now 2.8. Class sizes increased dramatically at some institutions, while others attempted to hire new faculty and graduate assistants.
"Now that the enrollments are down to a reasonable level, we are able to breathe easier and concentrate on offering quality education," says Sree Nilakanta, associate professor of MIS at Iowa State University.
Enrollment Declines
The 2001-2002 Taulbee Survey of computer science enrollments, from the Computing Research Association, indicates "the period of explosive growth in enrollments in bachelor's programs is over."
"We expect that this year we're going to see more evidence of this downturn," says Zweben, who serves on the CRA board.
At Big Ten universities, such as Ohio State, the drop-off ranges from 10 percent to 30 percent, Zweben says.
Princeton's Klawe says the decrease in computer science majors across institutions "seems to be roughly about 20 percent."
One effect of the boom's end seems to be a trend toward students seeking IT-related majors with an emphasis on business, art or other fields.
At New Jersey Institute of Technology, enrollments in computer science have declined but numbers have gone "way up" among the information technology majors, according to Stephen Seidman, dean of the College of Computing Sciences. The IT programs offer concentrations in fields such as e-commerce, multimedia and network security.
Seidman says he sees offering "new and more flexible majors" as one way to handle the declining enrollments. His college will be adding a major in bioinformatics.
Students pursuing IT remain excited about their prospects, even if they realize the field may not bring them riches.
"They still believe that the future of employment will relate to the Internet and Web-based technology in many significant ways," says Martin Ramsay, director of information systems and services at Berea College, a liberal arts college in Kentucky. "For them, technology is simply the way it is -- water to a fish, if you will."
Faculty Advice
Faculty offer the following advice to students considering a computing major:
Explore what working in the field will be like by speaking to employers, IT workers and faculty, even if this means delaying a decision on majors.
Computer science may not be for everyone. Consider business-related majors, such as MIS, along with IT-related majors incorporating expertise in other fields, such as biology. Double majors are increasingly popular among comp-sci students. Employers, say Klawe, "really like the idea of getting someone who is strong technically, but also has domain expertise."
Avoid focusing on technical classes to the exclusion of other disciplines, says Klawe. "Everybody's looking for people who have people skills and communication skills and leadership traits, in addition to your technical background," she says.
Think beyond the dotcom boom, current economic woes and concerns about offshoring. Computing remains fundamental to the economy. What's more, says Zweben, "You want to go into a field because you think you're going to enjoy it, not for glitzy or glamorous reasons
CEOs and CIOs tout offshoring (sending tech work overseas) as a surefire way to cut costs. But what this trend means for US-based techies remains far less certain.
If offshoring continues, then programmers and other technology workers, especially those working on maintenance and noncritical projects, should be prepared for career upheaval, according to executives with experience in offshore projects.
The execs' advice: Be a star technologist -- a leader -- with proven business know-how.
"For the uber-programmers -- the ones who are creative, the ones who are productive, the ones who like doing the novel stuff -- there's never going to be a lack of demand," says Asiff Hirji, a former CTO who is now a vice president with the consulting firm Bain & Company. However, if you work in maintenance of code, he notes, "it's not clear that you're long-term viable."
Or as Rudy Puryear, also a vice president with Bain, puts it: "You're at risk."
Remember Manufacturing?
Technology executives with offshoring experience describe an IT employment scene in which an increasing number of projects will be outsourced overseas. "The same thing happened with manufacturing, with shoes," says Andre Nadeau, executive vice president and chief strategy officer for CGI Group, an IT services firm. US companies have been able to hire cheaper labor in other nations for production purposes.
But, even as Nadeau and other executives see the offshoring trend accelerating, they say opportunities will remain for techies in North America. Professionals looking to avoid being sidelined by offshoring must be top-notch technologists and stellar communicators, adept at maneuvering in the world of business and willing to work with offshore personnel.
"They have to get beyond the grunt work," says Vivek Wadhwa, CEO of Relativity Technologies. "They have to really understand the business. You have to be able to communicate with users, rise to the higher plane." So get involved with helping the business -- that will never be outsourced.
Aim High to Stay on Top
In fact, these executives suggest the offshoring trend may be an opportunity for techies -- or the best of them, at least -- to avoid work they dread, especially when it comes to software maintenance.
The "high-criticality, high-design" projects will stay in the US, says Hirji. "Your onshore hotshot programmers are able to do more interesting work."
Sean Chou, CTO of Fieldglass, a software technology company, echoes these thoughts: "I see a lot of programmers and senior developers wanting to move into the role of architect." Offshore projects may allow them to take on additional leadership tasks. "Using an offshore model really allows people to better position themselves for that type of role," says Chou. "You need your most strategic thinkers to be here in the US."
As Nadeau puts it, "If you're an architect, you ain't going to be outsourced to India."
India is currently the undisputed offshoring leader, but other countries cited by executives as prospects for offshoring include China, Ireland, the Philippines, Russia and even Vietnam.
Marc Hebert, executive vice president of Sierra Atlantic, an application management firm, says management teams often need to understand the cultural differences and be able to handle the logistics of communicating between teams in the US and India. Given the cultural issues involved, flexibility is essential for IT workers involved in offshore projects.
Of course, flexibility is not enough. Onshore techies "need to focus on current technology," Hebert says. "The people who get stuck in dead-end technology are the ones who get marginalized."
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Ah heck Code warriors are always going to take CS degrees...it is the hidden business folks who are being weeded out and that's a good thing...dot com bleeeech
So, learn to Bulls*** and make pretty Powerpoint charts and Excel spreadsheets. Bean-counters are always in vogue; they "help the business", don't you know? People who do real work are expendable.
"Now that the enrollments are down to a reasonable level, we are able to breathe easier and concentrate on offering quality education," says Sree Nilakanta, associate professor of MIS at Iowa State University.
This is total rationalization BS. This is like the manager at Saks Fifth Ave. shop saying that now that customers are fewer, our store is cleaner and more organized. Every one id academia knows that more students means more faculty, more budget, more "assistant" deans, more tenure, etc. They need to save the BS.
CS used to be deeply entrenched in theory. Knuth, Wirth, Von Neumann, "The Principles of Computer Programming", "The Art of Computer Programming", stacks, and ordered lists, and chains, and storage management.
I punched cards for six months, that were fed into an emulator and graded, before I was ever let near a terminal.
Plenty good jobs in computer science, too many Americans off studying textile management and women's studies, ceding all computer jobs to Indians Chinese. And then complaining!
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Good news for those of us in IT who do it because it's what we love to do.
Pass it on to the high school kids planning their careers.
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