Fionn Murtagh’s Blog

Updating my article discussed below under “Student recruitment as an excellent indicator of the information economy” here are some udates from the CRA, Computing Research Association.

Given the sufficient data on which these trends are based, and also given how the North American trends often lead others, these trends are worthy of consideration.

• Cumulative increase over last three years in new Bachelor students per department is 15.8%$ if only majors are considered.
• Continuing upward trend in Computer Science PhD production. Up 5.7% from mid 2007 to mid 2008.
• Unemployment rate for new PhDs less than 1%.
• Continuing increasing trend for PhDs to go directly into industry. Now at 56.6%.
• Academic employment by fresh PhDs continuing to decline. Now at 30%.
• Proportion of women among CS PhDs now up to 20.5% in 2008.

From the National Science Foundation:

• 2007 was fifth consecutive year of annual increases in PhDs produced.
• Electrical engineering – fastest growing engineering field during the decade 1998-2007, with number of PhDs awarded increasing by 51.0%.

The news from the US (ACM TechNews, March 18, 2009) is good –

Computer Science Majors Increase at Most Significant Rate Since Dot Com Boom

The number of computer science majors enrolled in U.S. universities rose 8.1 percent in 2008, the first increase in six years, reports the Computing Research Association (CRA) in its 2007-2008 annual CRA Taulbee Survey. Total enrollment in computer science classes, including majors and pre-majors, rose 6.2 percent. “The upward surge of student interest is real and bigger than anyone expected,” says Peter Lee, CRA’s incoming chair. “The fact that computer science graduates usually find themselves in high-paying jobs accounts for part of the reversal. Increasingly students also are attracted to the intellectual depth and societal benefits of computing technology.

The Irish situation has seen increases in recruitment of up to 100% and more.

What is quite exciting is how this presages an economic upturn, as I have described in my blog entry below entitled “Student recruitment as an excellent indicator of the information economy”.