Weekly Poll August 19-26
Posted: Wed Aug 18, 2004 11:49 am
I'm basing this question on an article I read at cnet news, here is an excerpt:
At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as in other schools across the country, computer science enrollments are dropping, raising questions about the country's future tech leadership.
This fall, there are just under 200 new undergraduate majors in MIT's electrical engineering and computer science department, down from about 240 last year and roughly 385 three years ago.
The Rutgers University computer science department has canceled some course sections and expects total enrollment in classes in the major this year to be thousands less than its peak of 6,500 several years ago. Saul Levy, chair of the undergraduate computer science program, said the ongoing decline stems from the way students perceive career prospects.
"They don't believe in the job market in computers anymore," Levy said.
What Levy and others on the academic frontlines are observing raises concerns about America's tech work force and its leadership in the field. Peter Lee, associate dean at Carnegie Mellon's school of computer science, worries that fewer undergraduate computer science majors will translate into fewer computer science doctorates. That, in turn, risks slowing momentum in the field and losing the nation's lead in computer science research to countries such as India or China, he said.
In addition, Lee said, a smaller pool of researchers could mean the discipline generates less attention and, therefore, fewer new students. "It's a difficult thing to overcome," he said. "There's a vicious cycle."
[url=\"http://news.com.com/Students+saying+no+to+computer+science/2100-1022_3-5306096.html?tag=nefd.pop\"]Full Story[/url]
At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as in other schools across the country, computer science enrollments are dropping, raising questions about the country's future tech leadership.
This fall, there are just under 200 new undergraduate majors in MIT's electrical engineering and computer science department, down from about 240 last year and roughly 385 three years ago.
The Rutgers University computer science department has canceled some course sections and expects total enrollment in classes in the major this year to be thousands less than its peak of 6,500 several years ago. Saul Levy, chair of the undergraduate computer science program, said the ongoing decline stems from the way students perceive career prospects.
"They don't believe in the job market in computers anymore," Levy said.
What Levy and others on the academic frontlines are observing raises concerns about America's tech work force and its leadership in the field. Peter Lee, associate dean at Carnegie Mellon's school of computer science, worries that fewer undergraduate computer science majors will translate into fewer computer science doctorates. That, in turn, risks slowing momentum in the field and losing the nation's lead in computer science research to countries such as India or China, he said.
In addition, Lee said, a smaller pool of researchers could mean the discipline generates less attention and, therefore, fewer new students. "It's a difficult thing to overcome," he said. "There's a vicious cycle."
[url=\"http://news.com.com/Students+saying+no+to+computer+science/2100-1022_3-5306096.html?tag=nefd.pop\"]Full Story[/url]