Very recently a contributing editor of IEEE Spectrum, Robert N Charette, wrote an article entitled “The STEM Crisis is a Myth” < http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/the-stem-crisis-is-a-myth> posted on August 30, 2013

Note: This blog post is very US-centric, though Charette does have links to similar types of reports from various countries at the beginning of the article. I invite readers from outside the US to either comment or offer to write a guest blog looking at their country’s situation.

Needless to say the title piqued my interest. One issue that Mr. Charette discusses is how STEM jobs are defined and therefore what various statistics really mean. Definitions of STEM jobs range from 7.6m (US Dept of Commerce) to 12.4m (NSF)

While most of his article revolves around the group of sectors that make up STEM he does in a couple of cases refer specifically to computer science and information technology. For example

“Even in the computer and IT industry, the sector that employs the most STEM workers and is expected to grow the most over the next 5 to 10 years, not everyone who wants a job can find one. A recent study by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a liberal-leaning think tank in Washington, D.C., found that more than a third of recent computer science graduates aren’t working in their chosen major; of that group, almost a third say the reason is that there are no jobs available.”

Given the projections we’re all aware of (that there are about 150,000 CS/IT new and replacement positions opening each year on average from 2010-2020), and that we’re graduating only about half that number, why is there such a discrepancy?
I decided to take a look at the EPI study “Guest Workers in the high-skill US Labor Market” published April 24, 2013 to see what I could learn. <http://www.epi.org/publication/bp359-guestworkers-high-skill-labor-market-analysis/>

“What is surprising is that there are still 50 percent more graduates (in computer science and engineering) than the number who enter occupations related to their professional degrees.

“IT workers, who make up 59 percent of the entire STEM workforce, are predominantly drawn from fields outside of computer science and mathematics, if they have a college degree at all. Among the IT workforce, 36 percent do not have a four-year college degree; of those who do, only 38 percent have a computer science or math degree, and more than a third (36 percent) do not have a science or technology degree of any kind. Overall, less than a quarter (24 percent) of the IT workforce has at least a bachelor’s degree in computer science or math. Of the total IT workforce, two-thirds to three-quarters do not have a technology degree of any type (only 11 percent have an associate degree in any field).4

“…it is clear that the IT workforce actually draws from a pool of graduates with a broad range of degrees.”

Interesting and confusing stuff to say the least. The EPI article does an extensive analysis of Guest Workers as its title suggests and finds that (apparently) there are conservatively 165,000 guest workers each year allowed into CS/IT positions which combined with domestic CS/IT grads far surpasses the average yearly projection for new and replacement CS/IT positions.

Wow – I’m really confused now – maybe somebody will help me out??? Maybe I’m just missing something obvious.

Getting back to Mr. Charette, he finally concludes with what he believes is the real STEM “shortage”.

“Rather than spending our scarce resources on ending a mythical STEM shortage, we should figure out how to make all children literate in the sciences, technology, and the arts to give them the best foundation to pursue a career and then transition to new ones. And instead of continuing our current global obsession with STEM shortages, industry and government should focus on creating more STEM jobs that are enduring and satisfying as well.”

If you’re interested, you may want to surf to the article on the IEEE website and read through the comments posted on his article – most interesting…

I had an opportunity to briefly address a group of professionals in business organizations who are part of an Advisory Board for a local high school that I’m involved with. The school has a CS/IT focus. I used Cameron Wilson’s excellent set of slides based mostly on US Dept of Labor/Bureau of Labor Statistics Workforce Projections.  They point to the workforce issues that are occurring (his slides focus on the US, but the problem is actually worldwide).

I added a slide showing the use of the resource on NCWIT.org entitled “Computing Education and Future Jobs: National, State & Congressional Data”. I had highlighted the congressional district in which were were meeting and grabbed a screen dump.  This graphic clearly showed that the current pipeline of computing students in this Congressional district would only cover 27% of the projected computing jobs in this area.

They were astonished.  Many have requested more information on this site. Here is the NCWIT site:< http://www.ncwit.org/edjobsmap>
I think you’ll find that in nearly all congressional districts across the US, there is a shortfall, just as the national stats that Mr. Wilson’s slides depict. By the way, here’s a link to Cameron Wilson’s very informative slide set: http://www.acm.org/public-policy/2012_CS_Slides_Aug.pptx

Enjoy the rest of your summer.

In the May, 2013 issue of Wired magazine, there was an article entitled “In the Programmable World, All our Objects will Act as One”.  It’s about the ubiquitous electronic devices that collect data on us and our environment in so many ways.  These devices are beginning to talk with one another and soon we’ll be in a situation where we’ll be able to make them do many things for us.  Sure seems that those who can program will be able to use those interactions to their benefit and we hope the benefit of others.  This programmable world is coming much faster than people realize.

“In our houses, cars, and factories, we’re surrounded by tiny, intelligent devices that capture data about how we live and what we do. Now they are beginning to talk to one another. Soon we’ll be able to choreograph them to respond to our needs, solve our problems, even save our lives.”

Cybersecurity, Computational Thinking, Computer Science and STEM were the foci of SIGCT (Computing Teacher) activities at the recent ISTE Annual Conference in San Antonio, June 23-26, 2013.

ISTE 2013 (The International Society for Technology in Education) had about 17,000 attendees probably 80% K-12, the rest post-secondary.  While most of this conference deals with using computing technology in K-12 classrooms, there were about 80 sessions which were of interest to the SIGCT  special interest group.  Specifically for Computer Science there were 13 activities that involved computer science (including several BYOD sessions, for example) and 8 more activities related to teaching IT.  While the number of CS sessions are much greater at other conferences like CSTA, attendees get involved in other SIGs which might be of interest to computer science and information technology folks such as the SIGs for Teacher Education, Technology Coordinators, Administrators, Games and Simulations and others.

There is interest in computer science within ISTE.  I don’t know about other computer science sessions, but a BYOD on Scratch was full with about 120 attendees and about 40 additional who waited in line to get in (unfortunately few of those did).

I’m heavily involved in the SIGCT and as part of our activities our SIG held a Forum and a Playground both of which featured CyberSecurity which is a very hot topic in San Antonio.  With the second highest concentration of certified information security professionals nationally, the city has been working since 2002 to build educator-industry partnerships and get more students educated in computer science, IT and CyberSecurity.  The 24th Air Force (the AF component of Cyber Command) just located their headquarters in San Antonio in part because of the strong talent pipelines in the region.

San Antonio has 54 schools which are involved in a national competition called Cyber Patriot http://uscyberpatriot.org where kids use both IT as well as computer science skills.  We also learned that Computational Thinking plays a big part in not only that competition but in schools which have made CyberSecurity a priority in their curriculum.  Several high schools and colleges with CyberSecurity programs exhibited and involved participants at the SIGCT Playground including the UT San Antonio Center for Infrastructure Assurance and Security (CIAS), Alamo Colleges’ ITSA (Information Technology and Security Academy) as well as student and faculty representatives from St. Philips College and Southwest, Holmes and Jay High Schools in San Antonio.

It turns out that CyberSecurity and computer forensics both involve a lot of computer science, particularly significant problem solving and programming, along with significant IT components.  I am aware that there are several collegiate programs in Computer Forensics and CyberSecurity, but I didn’t know how extensive this was at least in the San Antonio area (http://cybercityusa.org/home) and indeed much of Texas.  This is certainly an area that both high schools and colleges consider for their programs.  I know that recently the NSA has made appearances at CSTA, NCWIT and Grace Hopper conferences looking to get involved with computer science advocacy, because areas such as CyberSecurity are of great interest to our armed forces, our government, and should be  to us.

A couple of weeks ago I attended the annual NCWIT Summit. As usual, it was a smashing success including excellent sessions, lots of networking and lots of food. Amy Dalal, an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Carleton College, attended this Summit and commented

NCWIT is big on “best practices backed up by research” and so every year we hear from social scientists on relevant research (stereotype threat, implicit bias, etc). These talks tend to be very powerful, and this year was no exception.

You might want to check out her full blog entry about her experience (which was very much like mine) http://acdalal.wordpress.com/2013/05/23/ncwit-summit-2013-trip-report/

In fact, you might want to bookmark her blog “This is What a Computer Science Looks Like” with the description “Musings on teaching, research, technology, and diversity by someone who doesn’t look the part.”  She has many interesting posts.

Enjoy!
Joe

To a question about Requiring CS for Entry into College? Barb Ericson posted this on the CSTA list recently. With her permission I’m reposting her comments here – they contain much of relevance to both high schools and colleges.

At Georgia Tech we do require every student to take and pass CS1 to graduate. I use this requirement to argue for more computing in high school. Advanced Placement Computer Science A does count as a science for high school graduation and this has helped increase the number of schools that offer AP CS A in Georgia (now 83 schools, up from 44 in 2004) and the number of students who take the AP CS A exam (over 1,000 in 2012 vs 422 in 2007). Yes, the quality of those teachers varies, but that is true in any field. I have been surprised how many schools have managed to find teachers who know at least some programming and are willing to learn more. Of course, there are also schools that have teachers who know little about computing and aren’t trying to learn more. But, I think that the schools and district should police this, not the universities.

Studies have shown that taking a programming class makes it much more likely for a student to pass a CS1 in college and this effect is even stronger for females (4 times more likely to succeed). Students who receive a 4 or 5 on the AP CS A exam don’t have to take any CS at Georgia Tech or can jump to the 2nd course if they want to continue. A survey that we did of students in introductory computing classes in colleges and universities in Georgia did find that many students and especially many minorities in computing did have prior experience in computing. A study by the College Board found that students who took AP CS in high school were more likely to take computing classes in college.

I believe that if we really want to substantially increase the percentage of females and minorities in computing then we should make computing required in high school. The Calculus AB exam is 48% female (vs 18% for CS A) in part because there is a perception that Calculus is required for any student who wants to go to college for any STEM subject. I think computer science is just as important as Calculus. However, Calculus still doesn’t have a large percentage of minorities, since it isn’t available at every school and doesn’t reach all students even at the schools were it is offered.

It would be great if every high school student had the opportunity to take computer science. The new CS Principles course should help increase the number of schools that offer computing.

Barbara Ericson
Director, Computing Outreach
College of Computing
Georgia Tech