Every so often, I see an article about how Computer Science undergraduate and graduate enrollment numbers are dwindling these days. The articles often scream “crisis on the horizon.” Did anyone stop to think for a second about why these numbers are down?
I don’t have any sats to back this up and I’m speaking purely as a devil’s advocate, but what if these degrees aren’t needed as much anymore? Before I get blasted with comments, let me explain. In no way do I mean a secondary education shouldn’t be persued after high shcool. College is an experience that teaches you many valuable lessons both inside and outside the classroom. Secondly, it is hard to find a decent job these days without some sort of degree. Having that degree shows you had the drive to get the it and that you are serious about your future.
Now put those words aside for a second. How many times do you hear about people who dropped out of college or didn’t go to college that end up being very successful in businesses they start? How many hacking schools have you heard of (for the record I’ve actually heard of a couple)? One of the great things about computer programming is that almost anyone can just jump right in and get started. Most people have a computer and the internet. With a few free downloads, you can have a full development environment sitting on your desktop provided you spend the time learning about how to set it up. You can literally bootstrap your skills from the ground up.
I know this is possible because to an extent, this is what I did myself with PHP and MySQL and I believe it’s the reason I have the job I do right now. I don’t deny having a CS degree helped and accelerated my learning, but what I am capable of today would have been possible without my degree. I may not have as deep an understanding of it right away, but I certainly think, given enough time, I could.
One of the main motivators for writing this was listening to FLOSS Weekly, a podcast all about free and open source software. Episode 8 is an interview with Ryan Gordon, the guy who recently ported Google Earth and many games (such as UT2003/2004) to Linux. In fact, that’s his job. He ports software for a living. Frankly, I couldn’t find out if he has a degree or not, but he stated right in the podcast that he learned how to do this by teaching himself. There is no school for porting games to Linux, I am sure of that and yet this guy is making a living doing just that.
Maybe it’s not such a bad thing that we have less CS students in the workforce (more money for me, mwahaha!). Maybe these kids are all taking the DIY perspective and teaching themselves. As I said, I’m just playing devil’s advocate here, but it’s something to think about. This also goes back to my blog post from last night. Being computer illiterate is just not acceptable anymore. Granted there’s a lot of hurdles you’d have to jump to go from being a computer illiterate to becoming a programmer, but you can do it and there are free resources out there to help.
