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December 9-15, 2013 is Computer Science Education Week which is promoting “Hour of Code“, with celebrities from Ashton Kusher to Shakira among the “non-techies”, as well as Bill Gates and President Obama all suggesting that everyone should spend one hour to learn how to code.
The website for the Hour of Code is simply http://code.org/. There are pages with coding games (look at http://hourofcode.com) and there is a full playlist of videos, including short lessons at http://www.youtube.com/user/CodeOrg.
Link to code.org page with games to help young students learn to code
I’m particularly pleased to mention that there’s an group of “UNPLUGGED” lessons, using visual play to teach coding principles. These are introduced to be done when you don’t have access to the internet or a computer, but it might be worth trying even when both are available.
“Most kids don’t know what computer science is. Here are some ideas:
- Explain it in a simple way that includes examples of applications that both boys and girls will care about (saving lives, helping people, connecting people, etc.).
- Try: “Think about things in your everyday life that use computer science: a cell phone, a microwave, a computer, a traffic light… all of these things needed a computer scientist to help build them.”
- Or: “Computer science is the art of blending human ideas and digital tools to increase our power. Computer scientists work in so many different areas: writing apps for phones, curing diseases, creating animated movies, working on social media, building robots that explore other planets and so much more.”
The second is delivered in an infographic, and discusses a much larger issue: the need for computer scientists (and that does included data visualization specialists, both in science and art) is growing at a huge rate, and education isn’t keeping up with the demand. The infographic (with supporting data below) tells the story:
- There will be 1 million more computing jobs than students over the next 10 years (adding up to $500 billion in salaries)
- More than 50 percent of all projected math and science occupations are in computing occupations.
- Computing occupations are among the highest-paying jobs for new graduates. Yet fewer than 3% of college students graduate with a degree in computer science.
- In 36 states, computer science classes don’t count toward math or science high school graduation requirements.
- A.P. Computer Science is taught in only 5% of U.S. high schools
- Fewer than 20 percent of AP Computer Science students are women. Fewer than 10% are Black/African American and Hispanic/Latino.
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1mm more jobs than students in computing, $500B over 10 years:
From the 2010 – 2012 report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, http://www.bls.gov/, across all industries we are adding 136,620 jobs per year in computing. Subtract 40,000 annual computer science graduates (see NSF data below) and you get roughly a gap of 100,000 jobs.
100,000 jobs adds up over 10 years to 1mm jobs, with an average salary of $80,000 (the average salary in computing), that results in:
first year: 100,000 x $80,000
2nd year: 200,000 x $80,000
3rd year: 300,000 x $80,000
10th year: 1,000,000 x $80,000
TOTAL SALARIES = $440,000,000,000 ($440 billion)
This is slightly below $500b, but it doesn’t account for inflation over the next 10 years. on top of that, there are many studies that show that each new software job results in many more jobs in the neighborhood. The latest such study suggested a 4.3x multiplier in terms of generating supporting/neighborhood jobs. With a 4.3x multiplier, we’d be talking about 5.3mm jobs over 10 years, and much more than $440b, so to be conservative we just rounded up to $500b. Here’s a very rough back of envelope analysis that suggests that the total opportunity size in this space may actually be closer to $1T in 10 years.
Note: We use the following BLS categories represent computing occupations:
- Computer and Information Research Scientists (15-1111)
- Computer and Information Systems Managers (11-3021)
- Computer Hardware Engineers (17-2061)
- Computer Occupations, All Other (15-1199)
- Computer Programmers (15-1131)
- Computer Support Specialists (15-1150)
- Computer Systems Analysts (15-1121)
- Database Administrators (15-1141)
- Database and Systems Administrators and Network Architects (15-1140)
- Information Security Analysts, Web Developers, and Computer Network Architects (15-1179)
- Network and Computer Systems Administrators (15-1142)
- Software Developers and Programmers (15-1130)
- Software Developers, Applications (15-1132)
- Software Developers, Systems Software (15-1133)
All of these positions benefit from basic exposure to computer science. The latest outlook for all these occupational categories is available at http://www.bls.gov/ooh/ and most of the list above is here: http://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/home.htm. Those pages have detailed data and the most current BLS projections.
According the Conference Board, In October 2013 there were 570,000 computing job openings in the United States, making these jobs the highest demand in the US — about 4 times more than the US average. Note that this isn’t about “shortages”, this is about demand and opportunity … and demand for these jobs is quite significant in every single state.
Computer science is the highest paid college degree
See http://www.forbes.com/pictures/mkl45kkeg/1-carnegie-mellon-school-of-computer-science/ The single best-paying degree in the USA in 2013 is a Computer Science degree from Carnegie Mellon College. Depending on what you measure or how broadly you define it, Computer Science degrees vie for the #1 spot across all universities, although in the 2013 batch of graduates they were in the #2 spot according to the NACE survey.
The Job/Student gap in Computer Science
The source for the job data comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, http://www.bls.gov/. Projections for job openings and replacements in computing jobs is 1,366,200 jobs from 2010 – 2020. Projections for all other STEM jobs combined (engineering, life sciences, physical sciences, social sciences) is 908,700 jobs over the same period. This is a 60:40 ratio of jobs in Computing vs the rest of STEM. The source for the students data comes from the College Board, surveying 2012 AP examination participation (see http://research.collegeboard.org/programs/ap/data/participation/2013), shows that of the 1,379,585 AP math and science exams taken by US high school students in 2013, only 29,555 were computer science exams. This is a 2:98 ratio of students in computer science vs the rest of STEM
Less than 2.4 % of college students graduate with a degree in computer science
National Science Foundation data on graduation rates from college, ie 2.38% of college students graduate with a degree in computer science. Source data: spreadsheet: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind12/append/c2/at02-18.xls, which comes from this web page: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind12/appendix.htm. In the most recent years, the average number of CS graduates. If you look at the last three years of data, annually 40,005 students graduated with CS degrees on average, out of 1,580,382 total graduates, which is 2.5%. The numbers peaked in 2004, a decade ago. They decline steadily until 2009. We are pretty certain that the number has climbed since 2009 but not yet reached the 2004 peak. To the best of our knowledge the NSF data has not been updated since 2009. CRA surveys show a clear growth in CS majors subsequently, they are based on surveys and not cumulative totals.
High school AP enrollment in 2012
The data about enrollment in computer science compared to other fields, and participation by women, African Americans, and Hispanic Americans all come from this page: collegeboard.com/student/testing/ap/exgrd_sum/2012.html
57% of bachelors degrees are earned by women, but only 12% of CS degrees
National Science Foundation 2009 source data: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind12/append/c2/at02-18.xls, which comes from this web page: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind12/appendix.htm shows that 57% of bachelors degrees are earned by women. The same data shows that only 18% of CS degrees are earned by women. A more recent 2012-13 CRA survey shows the CS degrees by women at an even smaller 12%: http://cra.org/uploads/documents/resources/taulbee/CRA_Taulbee_CS_Degrees_and_Enrollment_2011-12.pdf
9 out of 10 schools don’t offer computer programming classes
Source: Code.org database of local computer programming schools, sourced by a combination of data from the College Board, the Computer Science Teachers Association, and individual teacher submissions. Code.org database is here: http://aws.code.org/search
In X out of 50 states computer science doesn’t count towards high school graduation credit
The original source of this data was the ACM Running on Empty report: http://www.acm.org/runningonempty/. However, thanks to the advocacy efforts by Code.org and sister organization Computing in the Core, the list of states that allow computer science to count towards graduation credit has increased monthly, and at this point Code.org is the definitive source of the data.
67% of Computing jobs are outside the tech sector:
This statistic was included in the MSFT National Talent Strategy document and taken from a Georgetown University Center for Education and the Workforce Report on STEM (October 2011) by Anthony Carnevale, Nicole Smith, and Michelle Melton – see http://cew.georgetown.edu/stem/. The relevant quote “Computer occupations are the most widely represented across industries. For example, 9 percent are in Information Services, 12 percent are in Financial Services, 36 percent are in Professional and Business Services, 7 percent are in Government and Public Education Services, and 12 percent are in Manufacturing”. (12 + 36 + 7 + 12 = 67%)
Per-state Jobs and Students and Schools data
The number of open computing jobs in each state comes from the Conference Board’s Help Wanted OnLine®service (click here for more information about HWOL and their data collection methods). It represents the number of open jobs in the previous month (seasonally adjusted) for Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) Category SOC “15-0000 Computer and Mathematical Occupations”). This is a conservative estimate of the number of computing occupations as it excludes two BLS categories that include computing occupations: Computer and Information Systems Managers 11-3021 and Computer Hardware Engineers 17-2061. (This is due to limitations with our agreement with the Conference Board.) This data is cross-sector.
The growth rate vs. state average is comparing the job demand (% open jobs/of existing jobs determined in the May 2012 BLS’ OES survey) in computing occupations vs the state average.
The data on computer science students in each state comes from the National Science Foundation’s webcaspar service, and combines annual Bachelors, Masters and PhD degrees in Computer Science at all public and private non-profit institutions in the United States (by state), but not Associates degrees. The year based on the latest available survey from the webcaspar service.
The data on schools in each state comes from Code.org’s database of schools that teach CS, and includes elementary, middle and high schools that teach a full computer science class, AP computer science, or integrate computer science into other classes – this data comes from the Computer Science Teachers Association, the College Board, and self-reported submissions from teachers.
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