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Gates on reduction in entrants into computer science

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In the Seattle PI today, Bill talks about declining university enrollments is CS. I don't recruit for CS directly, but many/some of the people that we hire into product strategy roles do get their undergrad degree in a technical major. Plus I think there's somewhat of a cascade effect with other functions. Companies make decisions based on the availability of talent. I know that I personally make decisions on where, geographically, to recruit for marketing professionals based on the abundance of technical talent in that geography (because where there's good tech talent, there's good tech marketing talent). So it does impact other functions within technology companies.

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  • Anonymous
    July 19, 2005
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  • Anonymous
    July 20, 2005
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  • Anonymous
    July 20, 2005
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  • Anonymous
    July 21, 2005
    It's interesting to me that we aren't seeing more articles putting all the pieces together. There's a short term solution and a long term solution. I don't want to get political, but if you know me, you know that I want to hire the best people, period...that's what we need to be able to focus on in the short term. I mean if the world is flat now, perhaps some flexing to the new economic dynamic is required. And that's all I am going to say about that (well, probably not all I am going to say but at least for now). Just my opinion, of course.

    In the long term, we need to figure out how to get more students interested in CS. Scratch that, we need to make CS more interesting for students. And it can't just be about money because that's not sustainable and will, frankly, get us exactly where we already are.

    Is the US behind the times because we don't start stearing kids toward professions that leverage their strengths earlier? Or are we already doing that but there still aren't enough kids strong in the areas we need?

    I want to know WHY they aren't getting CS degrees. Some research please!

  • Anonymous
    July 22, 2005
    > I want to know WHY they aren't getting CS degrees. Some research please!

    Let me summarize my experience.

    1. People believe that the number of jobs in the US will decrease due to Offshoring.
    2. Perceptions of decreased salaries in the long run due to decreased demand for these skills.

    Here are some examples of how this is true inside the C.S. world and outside.
    I was talking to my neighbor who is a stay at home mom and her husband is a child psychologist. They are not techies by any measure. She asked me what my profession was. I told her that I was a software engineer at an ISV. Her reaction was surprising. She said, “That sounds like a great job. Only, I guess that’s less and less the case these days.” This is a pretty common reaction from people outside the field.

    Alan, my brother in law, is a C.S. student at the University of Michigan, which is a feeder school for Microsoft. He and his classmates often ask me about job prospects for the industry, and they seem very nervous about it. Other students in other concentrations at the U have the same pessimistic view of the field. The students in the C.S. program hear day in and day out that the job market is bad in the IT field from the press, friends, and colleagues. Many of them end up switching to other fields. Personally, I have deliberately moved into more of a Marketing and Finance role in my company in addition to learning more foreign languages so that I can have a broader skill set should the bottom of the market fall out.

    Right now the common perception is that C.S. is not the place to be.

  • Anonymous
    July 25, 2005
    Strayer is in the House !

    Strayer MBA Dec. 05 - yes, Strayer and they are tier what ?

    Tier you this, they have some progressive and interesting programs and student populaces going on. It's one reason I'm there.

    Glad to see Strayer starting to pop up on the radar. They have been around over 100 years, you can feel the diversity in the classes and it results in an extremely market applicable mindset. Your fellow students are SO diverse you cannot help but benefit. They examine every concept from almost every possible ethnic and cultural upbringing.

  • Anonymous
    July 25, 2005
    David-thanks for the scoop. Really interesting. I wonder if it's a self-sulfilling prophecy. Maybe all the talk has really freaked people out. Maybe those of us that hire CS folks need to be more public about it.

  • Anonymous
    March 20, 2007
    A school may "pop up on the radar," but if its MBA program isn't approved by AACSB it is a waste of your time and money.  Don't know what AACSB is?  Go to Wikipedia.

  • Anonymous
    May 12, 2007
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