Brooke Gomes

Prof. Baird
CSIS1030-Sp17
April 29th, 2017

Diversity of Opportunity for Computer Science Majors

Strategic problem solving is the foundation of any career path for students majoring in

Computer Science. Those who possess the ability to assess, diagnose, and resolve issues will

certainly have the advantage when entering into the field of Computer Science. This is due to

the algorithmic nature of computing. While being able to look at a problem and follow a step-

by-step process to implement the solution is a fundamental requirement for Computer Science

majors, this skill is easily translated into a myriad of professional opportunities.

Most college students embark on their educational journey with the intention of landing a

job in their area of study after graduation. A 2012 study published by the Federal Reserve Bank

of New York (Deitz) stated that around 73% of Computer Science majors are employed in

positions that require a college degree and 33% have jobs that are associated with their major.

Diverse opportunities await students of Computer Science post-graduation whether they find

gainful employment in computer technology or in another field.

Since the advent of computer technology, the demand for jobs in this field has continued

to rise. Computer Science majors are now needed across the spectrum of business and industry.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (Bureau of Labor Statistics), computer and

information technology jobs are projected to grow 12% from 2014 to 2024. This amounts to

roughly half a million new jobs in the United States. These statistics only display the average;
when we break it down into occupations the numbers can get much higher. For example,

Computer Systems Analysts are projected to experience growth of 21% during the same period

(Bureau of Labor Statistics).

Living in this day and age means that at any given moment we are experiencing some

form of technological revolution. From robotics, to healthcare, to social media and beyond

computer science has seemingly endless applications. Our world is becoming increasingly more

reliant on technology resulting in the aforementioned growth in computer technology jobs.

Those in highest demand include Computer Systems Analysts, Information Security Analysts,

and Software Developers. Jobs such as Computer Support Specialists remain in high demand as

well, but it is the analysts, developers, and engineers that enjoy the upper end of the salary range

for all computer technology job as well as the best growth. Even with this sunny outlook, not all

Computer Science grads will seek these opportunities.

Being that computers are used extensively in our society, everyone can benefit from an

education in Computer Science. There are many colleges and universities offering minors in CS

to complement existing programs. Some have even developed integrative degree programs that

unite technology with medicine, business, law, and even humanities. The colleges that offer such

programs, such as Loyola University Chicago (Loyola University), understand the need for

logical abilities in multi-disciplinary studies. This creates an added value to recent graduates

looking to enter the workforce in any field.

While logical abilities may seem like a vague term, the concept can be more accurately

described as computational thinking. Jeannette Wing of Microsoft Research describes

computational thinking as, the thought processes involved in formulating problems and their

solutions so that the solutions are represented in a form that can be effectively carried out by an
information-processing agent (Wing). The information-processing agent in question can

either be human or computer; the idea is that there is a fluid connection between the processes

being performed by either operator. While computers provide efficiency in the ways of

automation and calculation, humans have the ability interpret abstract data in ways that

computers cannot yet. This means that technology can be used in a field such as biology to

create experimental simulations in silica (Johnson). Biologists would still create their own

hypotheses and play a role in analyzing the data, but the use of computers has added another

dimension to the scientific method.

Perhaps the most underestimated and misunderstood usage of computational thinking

would be its application in the Liberal Arts. Critical thinking and problem solving are not the

sole domain of technological occupations, in fact, they are equally as consequential in the Liberal

Arts. For example, an anthropologist or archaeologist may need to work with very large datasets

and if they are not properly trained in the method of computational thinking, this could be

detrimental to their performance. Likewise, sociologists must analyze and predict behaviors; two

skills that can be attributed to computational thinking.

It may seem as if we are in the midst of a technological renaissance, but we have only

scratched the surface. A little more than half a century ago, Thomas Watson, then-president of

IBM, famously predicted the need for maybe five computers in the entire world market. We

know now that an assumption like this can rapidly be outpaced and proven wrong, which is why

we can only look to the immediate future to forecast the demand of Computer Science.

However, computers can also help us to more accurately project such a demand and what these

analyses tell us is that the prospects for Computer Science grads are trending upward in not only

the technology sector, but in nearly all other career fields.