<p>I only read the first 4 pages of this thread but I’d like to go back to the title of the thread for a second. We are trying to answer “why are there so few computer science majors?” without ever establishing that the number of computer science majors is actually surprisingly low. I would like to pose a question to the general audience: how many computer science majors would you consider adequate? </p>
<p>The [Scientific</a> American](<a href=“U.S. Science Degrees Are Up - Scientific American”>U.S. Science Degrees Are Up - Scientific American) reports that there were more than 38,000 Bachelor’s degrees awarded in computer science in 2009. For comparison, 13,000 civil engineers, 18,000 mechanical engineers, 5,000 physicists and 16,000 mathematicians graduated in the same year. And CS is unlike most other STEM fields in that a Bachelor’s degree is not even necessary for an entry-level job; community colleges offer a fine foundation. In 2009 also, community colleges awarded 30,000 [Associate’s</a> degrees](<a href=“http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind12/c2/c2s2.htm#s2]Associate’s”>http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind12/c2/c2s2.htm#s2) in computer science and probably many more shorter and specialized certificates that are not counted in national statistics.</p>
<p>Given that the number of computer science majors exceeds the number of any other STEM major except biology (with many pre-meds), are we justified in calling the number of CS majors “low”? I apologize if this has already been discussed elsewhere in this thread.</p>