Boring, difficult, irrelevant – but better than nursing.

Research out of the US has found that while computer science studies are highly regarded by college-bound teenagers there is a substantial negative image of the profession – particularly among women.

The findings of a nationwide online survey of 1,406 college-bound teenagers provide a chilling expose of the challenges of securing a gender diverse workforce in the information technology profession in the years ahead. While 52% of respondents overall rated computer science a ‘very good’ or ‘good’ choice for a college major, just 32% of women felt this way. By comparison, nursing was considered a ‘very good’ or ‘good’ choice by just 28% of respondents.

Even more startling, 67% of male respondents felt computer science would be a ‘very good’ or ‘good’ profession to select compared to just 23% of females.

Not surprisingly ‘doing work that was interesting’ was found to be the most important element in selecting a career, closely followed by having a ‘passion for the job’. Given the idealism of young people this is perhaps both encouraging but not surprising. The fact that less than a quarter of respondents felt that ‘doing work you find challenging’ or ‘working in a cutting-edge field’ were important elements in selecting a profession requires some thought for those seeking to promote computer science degrees to university entrants.

The research also contained some interesting insights into what may be driving young people into or away from the computer sciences and with the comfort of males and females in engaging with, using and creating technology. A key finding of the research was that the strongest positive driver towards computer science or an openness to a career in computing is ‘having the power to create and discover new things’. Despite this only 35% of male respondents and 13% of females felt comfortable subscribing to an RSS feed.

Reconciling the promise and reality of computing has clearly someway to go – especially in the minds of the young. Digital natives may be comfortable with computers but they evidence no greater desire to specialise in the field of computing than the generation who produced the natives’ computers in the first instance.The push for the ‘democratisation’ of computing may need reconsideration too. In particular computing as a subject of formal education may need to extend further into the earlier years of schooling. It may also be helpful if the fringe crusade of neo-tech evangelists against proprietary computing ceased so that media attention may be focused on the significant and urgent issues that confront all forms of computing development.

While undoubtedly the majority of the population will continue to rely on a few to create the computing tools that enable their economic innovation, the need to increase that few is pressing. Many efforts have been made in the past to inspire computing careers; those efforts must be redoubled if we are to even hope for the promise of an information connected world.

Simon Edwards, Head of Government Affairs