Everest University
Computer science
Is the computer science degree still needed

DeMarcus Tate
9/10/2014

Do companies need employees with the deep technical skills developed through computer science and software engineering degrees, or are they better off hiring tech-smart business majors because there is a growing need for computer science majors yet not enough people going for the degree. Not surprisingly, computer science educators, software companies and hardware manufacturers are adamant about the need for computer science majors to drive innovation at U.S. tech companies. The need of U.S. computer science graduates is forcing companies to look offshore for qualified people. Not having enough computer science majors has serious repercussions for our competitiveness," says Professor Cary Laxer, head of computer science and software engineering at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. "There are a large number of Chinese students and Indian students who are very, very interested in doing this work. We're going to lose our competitive edge as a country if we don't turn out more software engineers." But CIOs and IT staffing firms say the skills they need most are collaboration, problem solving and communications – all of which can be developed by any motivated college student. After all, today's tech-savvy Millennials have wireless and social media technologies integrated into their lifestyles and grasp how to exploit them far better than their 40-something bosses "Computer science degrees matter a lot 20 or 15 years ago, when IT was a cost center. But the job of being in IT has completely changed. The huge IT budgets are not even under CIOs; they're under the lines of business," says David Foote, CEO of Foote Partners, which conducts a quarterly survey of IT skills and pay. "This has brought in a whole new group of IT skills that come out of mathematics, economics, business and marketing." Having enough computer science and software engineering majors is critical for U.S. tech companies, who say they need to hire undergraduates with deep technical skills and practical programming experience. "For our software engineering roles, we tend to look for people with a strong computer science background who have experience with programming," says Yvonne Agyei, director of Talent and Outreach