Wall Street's collapse may be computer science's gain

[OhioChick]

From IT to hedge funds and back again

September 26, 2008 (Computerworld) The collapse of Wall Street may help make computer science and IT careers attractive to students who abandoned these fields in droves after the pop of the last big bubble, the dot-com bust of 2001.

William Dally, chairman of the computer science department at Stanford University, said that for the last several years, he has watched some students interested in technology go into banking and finance because those fields could be more lucrative.

"Many thought they could make more money in hedge funds," Dally said. He said students are returning to computer science because they like the field and not because it can necessarily make them rich.

John Gallaugher, associate professor of information systems in the Carroll School of Management at Boston College, said he's already seeing a shift in student interest.

"Students have commented to me and written on their course wikis that they're considering changing from finance , both based on the appeal of IS and concern over availability of finance jobs" in the future, Gallaugher said.

After the dot-com bust, computer science enrollments began declining, reaching a low of 8,021 last year from 14,185 in 2003-2004, according to the Computing Research Association (CRA) in Washington, which tracks year-over-year enrollment and graduate trends at 170 Ph.D.-granting institutions.

More:http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9115616&intsrc=hm_list

[ixion]

1. perhaps, if so many IT jobs hadn't been shipped overseas

now they might as well major as fry cook.

[thunder rising]

2. Like America's would be rocket scientists can't figure out there is no future in an ousourced field

of study.

[trthnd4jstc]

3. We need to have a Socialist Solution to the Capitalists mistakes.

We are becoming poorer, and strangely, even some of the rich are also. We need a mixed economy, and it will take governmental involvement to assist us through these times. I wish the Government would stop being so Fascist, and start with more job programs.

Democratic Socialism is superior to Fascism. Has anyone wondered why Fascists hate Socialist so much? We want to help humanity, they want to feed off of humanity, and so they make us out to be the enemy, when they are the enemy.

[mile18blister]

4. They've got to be kidding.

Between outsourcing and H1-B visas the IT field is dying. So much for all the time and money I spent getting a PhD in Computer Science.

[OhioChick]

6. I'm barely hanging on

to my job. Can't afford to take those couple of community college classes like bush suggests.

[Tutonic]

5. Might also be a gain in Vegas-Intrade.

N/T