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IP: : Washington Post article on declining IT enrollments
From: David Farber <dfarber () earthlink net>
Date: Tue, 27 Aug 2002 10:42:27 -0400
-----Original Message----- From: tim finin <finin () cs umbc edu> Date: Tue, 27 Aug 2002 09:08:48 To: dave () farber net Subject: Washington Post article on declining IT enrollments This is from the first page of today's WP business section. I agree with Steve Halperin's prediction that a dramatic decline in declared majors will result in a much much smaller decline in actual graduates, since many aspiring majors were attracted for the wrong reasons ("it's hip") and were subsequently turned off by the actual content and work. tim -- Tech's Major Decline - College Students Turning Away From Bits and Bytes http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64806-2002Aug26.html By Ellen McCarthy, Tue 27 August 2002 If John Yandziak had been entering college a few years ago, he might have sought a stake in the "new" economy. He might have dreamed of becoming an ace code-cracker for the CIA or the National Security Agency, or imagined toppling an empire with revolutionary software. Maybe he would have tried to use the Internet to end world hunger. But as Yandziak attends his first college classes this week, he's harboring different academic ambitions. The Ashburn native says he wants to do something more social and more interesting than working with computers. Besides, he said while packing for a Charlottesville dormitory room, "you can't get the chicks with that anymore." The tech industry's financial problems are enough to bankrupt the dreams of some fair-weather students. But now there's another consequence of the tech bust: Enrollment growth in undergraduate computer science departments has come to a halt. The number of undergraduates majoring in computer science fell 1 percent in 2001, according to a report by the Computing Research Association. And educators in the field say the trend seems to be accelerating, with some colleges seeing much greater drops as the new academic year begins. ... ... Economic potential weighs heavily in many student career choices, but other factors, including program difficulty, personal interests and social influences, also come into play, said Judy Hingle, director of professional development at the American College Counseling Association. The perception of computer science as an isolating, "nerdy" profession is one that many in the industry have tried to squelch. That stereotype went underground during the tech bubble but reemerged during the bust. "All the hipness is gone," Yandziak said. "Once we thought of the Internet as this thing with infinite capabilities. It was basically just a fad that came along." Lamont Thompson, a recent graduate of Calvin Coolidge Senior High School in the District, is headed to Morehouse College in Atlanta to study business marketing, with the intention of going into real estate development. "Technology comes natural to people my age; it's not fascinating anymore," Thompson said. "To be honest with you, when I think computer science, I think of some guy sitting behind a computer all day in a dark room. It's a necessity, but I wouldn't take it any further." For archives see: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
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- IP: : Washington Post article on declining IT enrollments David Farber (Aug 27)