Gates Puzzled by Computer Science Apathy
 

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=528&e=7&u=/ap/20050719/ap_on_hi_te/microsoft_research

REDMOND, Wash. - Speaking to hundreds of university professors, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates says he's baffled more students don't go into computer science.

Gates said Monday that even if young people don't know that salaries and job openings in computer science are on the rise, they're hooked on so much technology — cell phones, digital music players, instant messaging, Internet browsing — that it's puzzling why more don't want to grow up to be programmers.

"It's such a paradox," Gates said. "If you say to a kid, 'Yeah, what are the 10 coolest products you use that your parents are clueless about, that you're good at using,' I don't think they're going to say, 'Oh, you know, it's this new breakfast cereal. And I want to go work in agriculture and invent new cereals or something.' ... I think 10 out of 10 would be things that are software-driven."

Gates made his remarks on the first day of the annual Microsoft Research Faculty Summit, which drew nearly 400 computer science professors from 175 schools in 20 countries to the software maker's campus.

Sharing the stage with Gates, Maria Klawe, Princeton University's dean of engineering and applied science, said most students she talks to fear that computer science would doom them to isolating workdays fraught with boredom — nothing but writing reams of code.

Gates said computer scientists need to do a better job of dispelling that myth and conveying that it's an exciting field.

"How many fields can you get right out of college and define substantial aspects of a product that's going to go out and over 100 million people are going to use it?" Gates said. "We promise people when they come here to do programming ... they're going to have that opportunity, and yet we can't hire as many people as we'd like."

Citing statistics from UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute, Klawe said students' interest in computer science fell more than 60 percent from 2000 to 2004, even though salaries have increased and more jobs have opened up.

Klawe opened an hourlong question-and-answer with Gates by asking him what he thought could be done to stem a decline in federal funding for computer science research and graduate education.

In past three years, she noted, the Defense Department's research agency — a major source of money for computer science academics — has cut its funding for information technology research at universities almost in half.

The National Science Foundation is awarding a smaller percentage of grants for computer science than for other fields, she said.

Gates said Microsoft and other high-tech companies need to keep telling the government it's making a big mistake — one that could forestall stunning advancements in medicine, environmental science and other fields.

He also said companies can help by boosting their own investments in research and development.

"The best investment we've ever made is having our Microsoft Research groups," Gates said.

Modeled after academic research facilities, Microsoft Research focuses on work that is relevant to Microsoft's product lineup, such as security or search technology.

Products including the TabletPC have come out of the research arm, which has labs in Redmond; San Francisco; California's Silicon Valley; Cambridge, England; Beijing and Bangalore, India.

They would rather play their playstation and get fat.....after all...we owe them a living after highschool.

The apathy part is clear...but you would think they would get excited about the technology they base their life on..

I don't care about eliminating apathy on CS.

Apparently they have been taught about "outsourcing". A purely market-driven economy drives many good jobs overseas, and they don't feel like moving to Karachi.

Perhaps the apathy comes from Microsoft's stiffling of creativity and independent research. Think about when the biggest leaps in design and invention took place and you might see that it was before Microsoft steamrolled the personal computer industry.

How old are you...and do you remember the pre-windows95 era? I do and I prefer the Microsoft monopoly to those days.

BHD, I was working in Santa Clara when people were breadboarding Zilog and National Semiconductor circuits at home, so yes I was there during the pre-MS-DOS days. I've done my share of TRS-DOS, CP/M, AppleDos, MS-DOS, Appletalk, Netware, WinWkgrp, NT, Wordstar hacks, Wordperfect macros, dBaseII scripts, Hypercard stacks and other miscellaneous end user products, along with many manhours with a bunch of Borland's languages and AT&T/Novell's flavor of Unix.

I think the apathy comes from the changes in the job market in the early 2000's. In the late 90's computer science was the bomb as there was massive demand for programmers and salaries were higher than in most other fields. That was also the time I was working towards my Bachelor's degree and I was one of many who switched to computer science from another major. Then came the dot com crash and the economy fell into a recession. Many programmers got laid off and couldn't find another job and at the same time computer science was no longer the "hot new field" that it used to be in the 90's. Now there aren't enough qualified programmers and the job is in high demand again, but the field just doesn't have the hot exciting feeling about it anymore. I still like it though and I wouldn't consider switching to something else.

Back in the 80s CS majors were the “next big thing” after MBA majors. For many years, even over a decade, the volume of CS grads continued to increase. This created market saturation. Along with this saturation of the market, the devaluation of the degree followed. My guess is the combined effects of years of disillusioned programmers, the decline of perceived prestige of being a programmer or other CS training, coupled with the huge volume of outsourcing has conspired to encourage folks to look elsewhere for a career. Add to this mix the perpetual re-learning of techniques that takes place within the field and it’s not hard to see why folks don’t beat a path to become CS grads.

Even worse, as suggested above, the commercial industrialization of CS has served to squelch individual initiative. There have been no new “killer apps” for many years now. In fact the most innovative element of the industry have been by those who pursue viruses and spyware. Everything else seems to consist of incremental and largely irrelevant changes, done only to add glits and create a reason to resell something for the 15th time.

Look at Excel, a leading spread sheet program, and compare it to Lotus 1-2-3 of 20 years ago. Now you get better graphics, more built-in functions and that’s about it. The vast majority of folks barely know how to use a spread sheet, and databases are out of reach of more than 99% of all computer users. What irony! Make great tools, make them easy to use and few will take the time.

I guess in the end the puzzlement is less to do with CS itself and more to do with the combined effects of relearning, and the obvious trend towards general lack of motivation on the part of the American public.

Plus who want to spend 4 years running up debts to get a CS degree to have some paper pusher outsource your job to india to make it look like he is saving the company money somehow...

Why wouldn't everyone want to work in a field that is setting records in outsourcing and has historically rewarded shallow, superficial, self-aggrandizing, snot-nosed, elitist pricks?

Bonehead I think some of the younger generation is planning things like my 18 year old nephew. He's going to retire now while he can enjoy retirement. Then when he's 62 or 65 he will go to work. :mad: Rotten little bum! I wonder what he plans on doing when our generation is too old and feeble to support him.

One word:

India

- Patrick

If computers are not so hot, how about bio-tech? What say Bot?
Mark

He'll wise up about the time he gets hungry.........