Computing's Lost Allure, NYT, 22 May

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Tim Finin <finin () cs umbc edu>
Organization: UMBC http://umbc.edu/
Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 10:52:34 -0400
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Computing's Lost Allure, NYT, 22 May

There is a long article in today's NYT on declining CS enrollments
that has quotes from many in our community.  Tim
--

Computing's Lost Allure
By Katie Hafner, NYT, May 22, 2003
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/22/technology/circuits/22comp.html

BERKELEY, Calif. -- ON a sunny May afternoon, Brian Harvey's
introductory computer science class at the University of California
convened for the last time before the final exam. By the time
Dr. Harvey was full tilt into his lecture, reviewing recursive
functions and binary search trees, the cavernous hall was lightly
peppered with about 100 students, backpacks at their sides, a few legs
slung over the backs of empty seats.

Sparse attendance is, of course, an end-of-semester
inevitability. Many students viewed the lecture by Webcast, if at
all. But more significantly, just 350 students signed up for the
course this spring, in striking contrast to enrollment in the fall of
2000, when the same lecture hall was engorged at the start of the
semester with 700 students sitting and standing in every available
pocket of space.

So full was the room the first few sessions that a fire marshal showed
up to size up the situation as a potential hazard. "Even the corridors
were jammed," recalled Dr. Harvey, who has taught the introductory
course for 16 years. The following semester was little different, with
600 students hoping to enroll in the class.

Today, empty classroom seats, like the vacant offices once occupied by
high-flying start-ups, are among the unmistakable repercussions of the
dot-com bust.

At the height of the Internet boom in the late 90's, computer science
talent was in such demand that recruiters offered signing bonuses to
students who agreed to drop out of school. Now, spooked by layoffs and
disabused of visions of overnight riches, many undergraduates are
turning away from computer science as if it were somehow cursed.

"They overreacted to the boom, so why shouldn't they overreact to the
bust?" said Anne Hunter, an administrator at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology who tracks application and enrollment figures.
...
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/22/technology/circuits/22comp.html



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