Over the past several years, you’ve probably heard plenty of tales — and read plenty of stories, on Wired Campus and elsewhere — about the dwindling enrollment in computer-science courses. So here’s a nice change of pace. At California State University at Sacramento, computer-science enrollment is on the uptick.
In fact, the number of freshmen taking computer-science classes rose by 20 percent this year, a university official told The Sacramento Bee. That’s not cause for celebration quite yet. After all, the university’s computer-science enrollment shriveled from 1,600 students in 2000 to just 565 last year. But the growth spurt has officials hoping that the steady, nearly decade-long decline in the department is finally leveling off.
If computer science really is mounting a comeback, it’s not coming completely out of the blue. Fears of IT jobs moving offshore seem to have diminished, and states like California are once again touting systems analysis and software design as growth industries. But attrition remains a serious problem for computer-science programs, officials at the Sacramento university warn. —Brock Read
