This article in the NZ Herald got me thinking. It's entitled "IT grads halved over past 4 years".
Some of the points mentioned:
Is this just a NZ thing?
Given the shortage, the decent salaries and the fact that these skills are marketable world wide, I would have thought that the number would be going up?
There is no money in it. In the US, outsourcing to India and China reduced the wages and demand for native IT employees.
The market dictates what students will study. I bet green/environmental degrees will be "hot" these days.
I witnessed this in Ireland in the nineties and I am seeing it now in California where I live. I have a teenage son in his final year in high school, and I am now of the opinion that both the teachers, and the system in general, are totally removed from the technological world in which we live. How could they promote something they don't even understand themselves? Just my two cents.... :-)
The stereotype of the IT nerd is on its way out as more and more "normal" people (even of the female persuasion) use computers in their everyday social life. Even CS departments are now fairly balanced gender-wise.
The bigger problem is salaries: for a smart American-born student, there is often a glass-ceiling around the 100k mark and few dreams of dot-com-bubble-success, whereas there is no ceiling in medicine, law, or business.
Combine that with the possibility of outsourcing which is not really practical in these other fields, and it makes very little sense for a student not interested in graduate degree or specifically in development to go and study CS.
As for NZ, I know very little about your tech industry, I only know some (very good) academics.
I couldn't disagree more with Mel that "there's no money in it." Software design has been cited as one of the few recession-resistant, if not recession-proof, careers along with auctioneers and nursing.
It's true that IT no longer commands the salaries it once did for more commoditized skillsets like general network engineering. There is quite a bit of offshoring going on, but with thousands of unfilled jobs in the US and US firms constantly fighting to increase H1B visa quotas, medium-to-highly skilled IT jobs in the US are still available.
The article you cite quotes mostly NZ professors and professionals, so it might be somewhat focused on NZ. I agree with the article's assertion that there is a marketing problem, compounded by the complexity of the IT field. I would argue that IT is at least as complex as the medical field in terms of areas of specialization. Those naturally drawn to the field are able to navigate the options for higher education, the rest may tend to become accountants and lawyers ;)
US corporations are wanting to increase H1B visa quotas as they cannot fill jobs in their IT departments at the salary they want to pay.
It's the old illegal immigration argument. "Illegal immigrants are taking jobs that citizens do not want." The real quotation should be: "Illegal immigrants are taking jobs that citizens do not want for the salary being offered."
H1B visas create downward pressure on salaries. It's economics.
My previous career was in finance and accounting. I didn't get into it by getting a college degree in it, but most people do. It was a frequent phenomenon that business schools would push the best and brightest into accounting. Really pushed becoming a CPA. When many of these folks arrived in the "real world" and found out what accounting was like, they were sorely disappointed. It's a wonderful field, but it's just not for everybody.
I made a career change a decade ago, from finance to IT (nerd to geek). In the late 1990's, there was such a shortage of developers, especially web developers, that anybody could get into the field. Just knowing HTML would get you a job.
Over the past decade, Computer Science became a hot major at universities. A lot of people got into it because of the good pay and benefits, and because it was a popular industry. As those people have gradually entered the workplace, a lot of them are having the same experience as the accounting majors -- they just don't like the work. As y'all know, you have to be a certain personality type to do this stuff, and there's lots of bright people out there who just aren't happy with this kind of work. Add to that the offshoring and outsourcing, the competition from contractors and H1-B's, the nerdy stereotype, and the reality of constantly having to study during non-working hours just to keep up with the flood of changes in the technology, and it just isn't that appealing to lots of those folks.
Add to that the fact that Computer Science is a very specialized area of study. In developing the necessary technical expertise, a college student is not studying other areas of potential vocational value. When you get your degree, your career options are pretty limited. Students may be drawn to areas of study that are less specialized, so their career opportunities are broader. And deeper -- it's quite a challenge to advance up the corporate org chart from IT. Or to make a lateral move into other divisions.
The decline in IT graduates is is because IT does not bring the kind of money it did in the late 90's (although the pay is still good, IMO), there has been less interest in the field.
And you know what? Good. It's a pleasure working with people that actually enjoy programming, rather than people that have no interest in programming that hack together some piece of garbage in order to collect a paycheck that they don't deserve.
Another viewpoint could be that a four year program in computer science is just not attractive when there are technical schools with two year programs and specific training programs that teach only what is relevant to getting a job.
In the resumes that I have been seeing, a lot of the people with degrees are ones with non-CS degrees. Also have been seeing no degrees, with training through boot-camp training courses.
Personally, when screening candidates, I do not even feel that a degree is required. I am more concerned with skills, experience, and potential. I have seen just as many under-qualified candidates with a degree as I have seen without.
Here is my observation (I have worked in India and am in working in US on H1B visa). The companies are cutting cost (of labor, let it be industrial/IT).
I think I am fairly good and must be paid well. But, the H1B visa is corrupt at many level. Companies want to cut costs, H1B people are paid less (because the headhunters/recruiters take good part of the wage), People fake on their resume/experience, Recruiting industry is messed up (i.e. they look for keywords in your resume, more the better).
I think students who are seriously interested should get into s/w engineering & build things which cannot be completely outsourced. I think America maintains its edge because of companies like google, microsoft - which innovate
And, innovation can not be outsourced. It is usually the mundane things which gets outsourced. India/China has lots of smart people. Either they come to US or work in a job, where there is not much innovation required.
Innovation is the key, where US has edge and maintains it.
UPDATE: The culture of taking risks and change the way of doing things - this is where US has a lead. India/China has big companies but innovation/risk-taking is less.
The problem is that we must get people interested at the High School level where they are deciding what to do in the future. College is a big investment in time and money and the direction a person takes is largely decided in High School.
Schools at the high school level don't understand Information Technology and therefore don't encourage, entice, or teach a curriculum that would draw students into this field. They focus on how to use technology but have no curriculum available for how to build and maintain technology. Compare this to something like automobiles where a typical high school in the United States has a great automobile shop where they teach the fundamentals of auto mechanics along with hands on repair, re-building, and modification. Of course these programs are sponsored by the Auto Industry with rewards that get you real money in the form of scholarships. Personally I think there is a large void here begging to be filled; major companies in the computer industry should start sponsoring high school curriculum with scholarship rewards.
In summary: It's low because high schools suck, and it's dropping back down to the low levels that the high-schools provide because the dot-com bubble burst removed any glamour from it...
My experience may be atypical (completed high school in NZ in 1999), but my high school didn't put any emphasis on computer science whatsoever. Computer studies weren't even offered as a course until the final 2 years of high school, and they consisted almost solely of learning how to create powerpoints, use basic excel, and do mail-merge in word.
Most subjects in the final year of high school seemed to give students an idea of what they might end up doing:
Note: Almost every course seems to lead a career to which some portion of the students aspire to, except compsci. I've never met anyone with aspirations of becoming a secretary (no offense to the many wonderful secretaries out there).
I went into uni as the dot-com bubble was building, and it temporarily managed to overcome this stigma with the outrageous sums of money that were getting thrown around. I would often get comments from people saying "oh you do computers, can you buy me a Ferrari in 3 years when you finish uni and earn billions?." This certainly drove a lot of people towards CS that wouldn't have otherwise done it.
After the bubble burst (and still, to this day) CS lost this glamour.
I'd like to believe that nowadays (or in other countries) high-schools are doing a better job of showing students possible career paths in CS, and not just teaching them how to use office, but sadly I don't think this is actually happening.
It's probably not just a NZ thing as such, but the effect will be more pronounced in NZ as the tertiary education system has a massive over-capacity. When I did my B.Sc at a New Zealand University in 1997 most of the stage 2 COSC papers had about 50-60 people enrolled in them. In 5 years or so they had nearly quadrupled to a projected enrolment of 230 or so. The Computer Science department had to put limitation of entry on Stage 2. This coincided with the height of the .COM boom.
The distribution of marks in Computer Science assignments tends to be bi-modal. You get a group of students with grades around 'A' and a longer tail with another peak around B-C. The A's are the ones with talent (for want of a better word) and the others are the not-so-bright ones. The number of postgrads and good students tended to remain the same, but the tail got larger. The numbers were just beginning to grow about 1988-1999, when I was working as a tutor. You could see the effect - the treasure hunters came in droves and expected to be spoon-fed, sucking up a lot of the tutor's time.
Most of these people weren't really interested in the work - they thought an IT career would make them easy money. They were the same sort of people who would have done finance or accounting in the 1980s gold rush era. Now the shine has gone off I.T. the enrolment levels will drop down to where they might more naturally sit.
I would expect similar things to happen in most countries, but New Zealand has a large surplus of capacity in its tertiary education system so it's very easy to get into Stage 1 there. In fact, at one point they used to teach functional programming in Stage 1 and make that course (COSC122) a prerequisite for all the Stage 2 papers. Any education-related trend will be somewhat amplified in New Zealand because of this but you can probably see a similar effect (although slightly less pronounced) in most developed countries.
I think there's several things at work here. Firstly, as many others have noted, schools (both college and high school) are doing a terrible job of preparing CS students. 99% of the CS grads I come across are unemployable. They can't write a hello world program, much less do anything complex. The foreigners coming in on visas generally know at least a little bit of what they're doing. Outsourcing is not practical if you want a maintainable product, and I think the corporations that have been doing it for a long time are realizing this (as they go bankrupt). Also, more and more people getting CS jobs don't have a degree in CS. My degree is in Electrical and Computer Engineering, which actually teaches you something, as opposed to the CS program at my college. Also, many people getting hired for CS jobs don't have a degree at all. What's the point? Why should someone go spend $160,000 getting a piece of paper when they could get a much better education in a much shorter time by just programming in their spare time? That's how I learned, and that's how most successful people learned (which is why I decided to study something else at college -- I already knew more than they would teach me in CS).
A lot of students simply follow whatever course of study that will pay the largest salary upon graduation. Before the dot-com crash it was IT/CS, for a few years it has been finance but the new big thing seems to be engineering.
It's always been cyclical like this. The fact that the business cycle is 5ish years, and IT qualifications take 3-4 years and lag behind just accentuates with the cycle even more.
This happened during the dotcom boom. Everyone got into IT because there were headlines about there being massive IT staff shortages and "that was where the money was", even if they weren't particularly interested in it.
By the time those people graduated, the dotcom bust had happened, and there were headlines about IT salaries dropping, and no one was able to find work.
Subsequently, no new people got into IT. Fast forward a couple of years, and there is yet another economic boom, and another skills shortage (due to not enough people having started IT around the time of the bust). Those that did stick it out through the bust are now experienced and in demand. Everyone dives into IT related courses again.
Then the subprime crisis happens. IT demand drops. Graduates complain that there is no work around, enrolments drop.
And the cycle continues.
IMHO, the moral of the story is do what you love. Doing the 'qualification du-jour' is a recipe for disaster. If you aren't passionate about it, chances are that demand in that hot field will probably be lower when you graduate. If you love what you're doing, you might have to rough it for a few years, but you'll do well in the long run.
You're more likely to get a foot in the door (employers can smell candidates without passion who are just in it for the money, and while they might have been forced to take them on during the boom, they WILL be picky during the lean times), and by the time the next boom comes around, you'll be experienced, and able to take the pick of the best jobs out there.
I think it might have something to do with the fact that in this day and age, kids grow up with nintendos and playstations, and as such don't have such an easy path into the guts of computing.
I grew up with the sinclair spectrum and the commodore amiga. Many will have grown up with the apple 2 or the C64. With this kind of toy you were a lot closer to how a computer operated and you were more likely to mess about with things rather than just accept that it was something you just used.
PCs have been dumbed down a lot from what they were 15 years ago. I remember proudly managing to squeeze 620K of dos based memory to get the game I wanted to play working.
Kids these days using Windows or OSX have no obvious need to get their hands dirty so an interest and knowledge will not start being built up from an early age.
People talk about offshoring putting people off, but I think that's just something that's a phase and will turn out for a lot of organizations to be an expensive mistake. In my experience some stuff can be offshored but due to quality of staff offshore and experience levels available, that tied with a lack of loyalty to an employer means that there is limited value in this exercise.
No, it applies to other countries like Canada, US, and UK as well. There is the perception that tons of people from India, Russia and China will take the IT jobs as companies outsource the work to countries way over on the other side of the world, at least from North America.
There is also a lack of "cool" associated with studying Math and Science over here, in Canada and the US. The athletes that are part of the schools getting into Bowl games in football or the Final Four for basketball are probably more well-known than those top computer science students in terms of programming ability. "Mean Girls" would be a film that illustrates some of this to great effect as well as showing the entertainment side of what else can be considered cool or hip.
well, the reason over here in austria why CS student rates are stagnating is because it's just not what most of them are expecting.
they grow up with windows XP and Vista and think a CS degree is something you can reach with being fast with your mouse and having some clue with computer games. a small part of them think about the fact that it's a lot of maths, and has nothing to do with installing windows and ms word XX , etc...
most of the people just had a wrong image of a CS study and therefore just not finish it or don't even come over the first semester. maybe that's different in other countries, but at least over here i guess that'a major point why not much people finish their studies in CS.