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Part of the problem is that we don't know how to teach computer science to students that haven't already been programming for years before college. The major ha

Part of the problem is that we don't know how to teach computer science to students that haven't already been programming for years before college. The major has the highest first-year dropout rate. http://www.siliconrepublic.com/innovation/item/18532-computer-science-courses-ge http://www.siliconrepublic.com/innovation/item/18532-compute... http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1151604 http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1151604 That suggests that one reason there are so few CS graduates despite demand is that those who enter CS programs because of said employment demand, and not because they are already interested in programming, don't make it out with a CS degree.

srconstantin 15y ago
With respect to CS in particular, I think it's different from all other school subjects in that it is and has always remained a predominantly self-taught subject. You don't really get "taught" to program. (I think this may be part of the reason that while there are increasing proportions of women in all the other sciences, the proportion of women in CS is dropping. Girls are statistically better in all school subjects than boys, and tend to be more diligent at homework and so on. Math and science fall neatly into that paradigm; programming doesn't. You get no gold stars from grownups by programming. So a lot of people who have the problem-solving aptitude to be good programmers never actually get started -- because nobody TOLD them to.)