We recently started college recruiting at Pariveda and I was surprised to find that one of the schools we are targeting (one I have worked with in the past) has far fewer IT recruits. At this major Texas school, Management Information Systems (MIS) enrollment is down 50-60% and Computer Science (CS) enrollment is down 70% in the last few years. I would have expected that the bubble burst a few technology ambitions but the extent of the effect moved me to wonder why we are losing college interest and what the impact of that will be.
I should admit I hold a biased opinion that MIS and CS are still incredibly valuable degrees. My CS degree did more than just teach me how to code, it taught me how to think about and solve problems. I still catch myself thinking in subroutines or, on a bad day, caught in a recursive algorithm. Oops, I think I'm in a subroutine now so I'm going to pop back out to my main point. As a part time "recruiter" for Pariveda, I love hiring MIS and CS majors. They are immediately productive on technical projects and have a great foundation for IT strategy and project management. The IT organizations we serve need to hire college recruits as well - they bring new ideas and energy and they are critical for succession planning. MIS and CS majors have the best aligned skillset for those organizations.
That all makes me wonder why student interest in MIS and CS degrees has apparently declined, especially since young adults are the biggest embracers of technology. The obvious answer would be if there are no companies hiring, but that isn't true. Graduating seniors this year have three to five offers to choose from - companies are flocking to campuses. Perhaps these college students are concerned about future impacts of outsourcing, specifically offshoring. But few companies are shipping off their solutions development - what a typical CS or MIS graduate would do - they are offshoring the help desk and other operational activities. And if/when they do ship off solutions development, they will need people in house to manage those projects and relationships. Perhaps these students read the infamous HBR article "IT Doesn't Matter" and actually believed it. But despite the sensationalism of that article, companies are spending more on IT now than the year it was printed. Technology will continue to drive the economy by improving productivity. All of the evidence shows that IT will continue to be an exciting and financially rewarding career for at least the next thirty years. I hope that more students will return to this discipline and that universities will prepare them with a technology foundation as well as the new skills now required for a career in IT.
At least for consultancies and IT organizations, the future stars are less likely to be "super coders" and more likely to be technical architects, project managers and relationship managers. Now that most of the easy problems have been solved, IT can focus on the transformational, driving business strategy as well as supporting it. As outsourcing gains traction, IT organizations will require deep competencies in IT planning, relationship and demand management, strategic sourcing, architecture and project management. If focused effectively, a career in IT will be more dynamic, challenging and rewarding than ever before. And because of the balance of knowledge and skills gained through it, it is a great stepping stone to many other areas of business.