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Also, after the dot-com crash and the first wave of offshoring, programming was sort of seen as a dead end. CS enrollment dropped considerably, and I'm not real
by suresk 14y ago
Also, after the dot-com crash and the first wave of offshoring, programming was sort of seen as a dead end. CS enrollment dropped considerably, and I'm not really sure that it has fully recovered.
I would argue that the talent pool isn't completely inelastic, but it does take a number of years for the talent pool to respond - especially because the most acute shortages appear to be in the market for senior-level developers.
- tikhonj 14y agoAt least at my school, I think CS enrollment has swelled in recent years. However, it is not the same as it was back in the bubble (well before my time): back then, the intro professors had various schemes for weeding out potential majors; now they are still trying to get most people stick with it. With that in mind, I think "recovered" is the wrong word: since enrollment back there was inflated with people just interested in a good salary, nobody in CS really wants that to happen again. As one of my professors would say, that's what the business school is for. These days there is quite a demand on the major, but I think it's actually mostly from people genuinely interested in the subject. So, purely anecdotally, my observations echo yours: CS enrollment has increased, but not to the levels of the dot-com bubble.
- pnathan 14y agoI started school around then. There was a large bloc of CS majors who just wanted a fat paycheck. I expect after 2003 or so, that bloc nearly vanished.