Computer Science Major Overloaded?

College Majors Engineering Majors
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<p>The title. MIT is seeing vast majority of their undergrads majoring in course 6, and Harvard is also showing a disproportionate percentage of computer science concentration. And I don't think these are only present in top schools; even on this board, a lot of prospective science majors are going for computer science.</p>

<p>Can the industry growth handle this influx of CS majors? I know it still isn't as popular as say, law and med, but I think its proportion is pretty huge in the STEM sector.</p>

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<p>Not every person who signs up for CS will finish, or even get through the first few introductory courses.</p>

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<p>Every big school has a lot of freshman/sophomore CS (and other engineering majors). The main question is how many will be junior/senior CS majors?</p>

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<p>Only about 15% of MIT students graduate in Course 6, hardly a majority. That number also includes electrical engineering majors and the number of pure CS majors is less than 10 % of the total. That number has been SHRINKING every year for the past decade not increasing.</p>

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<p>CS majors are a waste of time. Such a narrow field and far too elementary imho. I don’t see CS majors achieving their full potential. I do agree that it is crowded, but I think they can manage that flow for a good while longer.</p>

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<p>^^ Okay maybe I was citing a wrong source. Would love some solid statistics, though I’m still ready to believe that I’m wrong.</p>

<p>So the retention rate of CS is relatively low?</p>

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<p>@Subsidized: I disagree that it’s a narrow and elementary field. What about Petroleum Engineering or Urban Planning? Computer Science is a relatively broad field with a lot of applications everywhere, be it cars, robots, or even music.</p>

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<p>I have a lot of family and friends in the field. I’ve been informed that a major in CS is fairly limited. When a company goes to hire between two similar candidates and the difference is CS and EE, they’ll go with the guy with a major in EE. I go as far as calling it elementary because of I find the college-related courses to be a joke for the major.</p>

<p>Just my thoughts :)</p>

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<p>At many schools, a prospective CS major needs to take certain courses AND achieve a certain GPA before the school admits them to the junior/senior part of the degree. Many students do not achieve this (including yours truly). Unless that denied CS student can take another similar major, they usually switch out of CS completely.</p>

<p>I was lucky. I knew that in the software world…CS major = Math/CS major, so I switched to being a math major. I took the absolute minimum number of math courses for a B.S. in Math while taking 90% of the CS program for my electives and kept it moving.</p>

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<p>@Subsidized: Well, you must be really good at programming then! I’m a relatively new programmer and find the courses good enough, not too easy but not hard at all. I don’t know about the upper-level classes though. I assume stuffs like AI and Computer Architecture should be challenging.</p>

<p>@GLOBAL: Can you take a software engineer job at big corporations as Math major? By that I mean FB/Micro/Google big. I would guess those companies would have the math majors in the financial sector instead.</p>

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<p>First things first…</p>

<p>1) THERE MORE COMPANIES AND EMPLOYERS THAN FACEBOOK, MICROSOFT AND GOOGLE…and many other companies that pay just as much or more than Facebook, Microsoft and Google. Like I have said before, American Express does not care what company one works for…they care about your income before giving you a card. Wells Fargo cares about your income and credit rating…not if you work for Google or Facebook.</p>

<p>Having said all of that…</p>

<p>Software engineering is a pretty liberal industry…one that cares more about what you know…not your path in how the knowledge was obtained. If a math major had the desired academic and desired work experience, then Google, Facebook and other employers will hire them.</p>

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<p>You know what’s funny is I know very little about programming. I learned the bare minimum, but I made sure that I had my mind in the right place.</p>

<p>Despite my lack of knowledge in programming languages, I was successfully understanding and completing graduate level work at the age of 12! CS really use to be my passion and I do find it a bit hypocritical that I am so strongly against the major now. I would say that it did inspire me to work hard. I was specifically interested in Cryptography and without my intense pursuit in the field, I wouldn’t be familiar with many of the maths I know and love today.</p>

<p>I wish you luck, but I’ll add again hop boats. EE has cookies!</p>

<p>_</p>

<p>@The question about a math major. I originally planned to get a double with pure mathematics. I was informed that even applied was interpreted as futile, even in heavily math based computer fields. As interesting as some maths may be, I would strongly advise just a math major if you plan on doing something related to computing.</p>

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<p>Computer Science at top schools isn’t easy, and rest assured those who are declaring it for the ‘money’ won’t be able to make it. Sooner or later, they will be weeded out of the program. I’ve been a teaching assistant for a CSE course, and I’ve seen students crumble right in front of my eyes.</p>

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<p>It’s pretty laughable that people think an influx of CS majors won’t mean an influx of CS grads. At better schools like MIT and Harvard and most of the top engineering schools, the vast majority of students are more than capable of graduating with a CS degree. It’s hard for the average person, but the average person sees CS near the top of the salary charts and says “dang, if only I was good at math.”</p>

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<p>^ It’s not laughable at all, it’s pretty darn accurate if you ask me. Aside from personally witnessing it, I’m sure if you ask the chair of your department, he can vouch for what I said wholeheartedly. Many of those ‘top-tier’ universities have CS/CSE students that are weeded cause they simply don’t have the algorithmic-style of thinking needed to excel in quality CS programs. They might be bright with cute little SAT scores, but that doesn’t mean they can handle the pressure and load that comes from CS departments. If someone attends a project-driven CS program, where useless memorization is not stressed, you better be passionate about the major or else . . .</p>

<p>I’m beyond confident that many of those ‘Stanford’ or ‘UCB’ or any top-tier schools students who are doing CS for the money will feel depressed if they take a basic, 200 level course like CSE219 here at Stony Brook, I can imagine them feeling suicidal.</p>

<p>[CSE</a> 219 Home Page](<a href=“http://www.cs.sunysb.edu/~cse219]CSE”>http://www.cs.sunysb.edu/~cse219)</p>

<p>Allow me to remind you; this is a 200 level class, where you are smacked with 20,000 lines of code, 30-40 classes, and expected to INDIVIDUALLY implement a major project. I’m sure those top notch CS programs have similar courses. Also, don’t even get me stated on 300 level classes, that I kid you not, can practically kill students who aren’t passionate about CS. If you get a chance, open the course page, go on the HW’s, and honestly ask yourself if those ‘money-driven’ folks would be able to handle it, including those Ivy-league students. </p>

<p>I might agree that there exists mediocre CS programs that don’t really go deep into the material like say UCB, or CalTech, but to claim the field is ‘overloaded’ is simply nonsense. I agree some students who are doing it for the money might be able to thrive in those kind of programs( I know a couple of schools like that). Even they however struggle with graduating students.</p>

<p>Ask any chair, and they will tell you how hard it is to actually have stuents graduate from their program. CS is one of those fields where you either get it or you don’t, you have to have a certain kind of thinking that comes only with experience and practice. Like I said, I recall serving as a teaching assistant, we had about 200 students, die-hard students that wanted to do CSE in an intro-level class, but you’d be surprised to hear how many couldn’t handle the heat when the time for a course project came rolling in.</p>

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<p>Seriously? Again? How is it so easy for you to compare your school against every top school you have never taken a class at? I am sure your class is tough…but so are the students that enter these universities. There is no one on this board questioning the academic quality of Stonybrook. Maybe it would be best to just state that your class is hard, and not continue to drag other HIGHLY respected universities into it…</p>

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<p>Hey ChuckTown, that was surely funny. Let’s put it this way, why don’t you read what I wrote carefully before you comment? Clearly, you misread what I wrote. I never ‘dragged’ any top school, so that’s a lie. What I said was it doesn’t matter which school you attend, or how pretty your SAT is, CS isn’t meant for anyone. Those who are swimming to the field for the top-paying jobs might not be able make it, although they might in schools where quality isn’t stressed. I merely used my school, which I’m familiar with, as an example to to hammer my opinion and prove that those students end up dropping out. Initial enrollment in CS programs is always high, it’s the graduation right that matters. </p>

<p>Before you reach a juvenile level of excitement, take some time comprehending and not just reading without analyzing.</p>

<p>Best,</p>

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<p>This is true, but obviously if initial enrollment doubles, then the number of graduates will increase. If not by double, then by slightly less. But the point still stands, if CS gets flooded with incoming students it may change the conditions of the job market. </p>

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<p>serious man, give it a rest already.</p>

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<p>You obviously have some insecurities about Stony Brook. If you are so proud of it then stop comparing it with Stanford and UCB or any top-tier schools because it’s seriously just making fun of yourself.</p>

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<p>Hey…</p>

<p>Folks can plug their schools. There is no harm in that. As a matter of fact, yours truly would like to plug the undergraduate computational mathematics program at Michigan State and the no-specific-major graduate engineering distance program at University of Wisconsin System.</p>