Top 10 Reasons to Study Computer Science in 2009
The trend in blogs, the internet and news sites lately is to write articles about the economy. Instead of that however, I thought I would use the opportunity to try to encourage people who might be considering studying computer science (or related related fields) to go forward and pursue education in this area. Now is an especially good time to get your foot in the door since admissions have generally been low the last few years and there are plenty of jobs, which is more than we can say about many other areas. It’s also close to the start of the year so maybe it would be good to start with a new career path.
Example Office Environment
10. Not Labour Intensive
In terms of physical labour, on a list of 100, a job in the computer industry would likely be ranked 98 or 99 behind participants in sleep studies. You will likely end up with a nice ergonomic chair and a more comfortable working environment than your own desk at home (unless of course your a researcher at a university, in which case it will be the other way around). If you manage to land a job at a large software company there are often ample breaks, lots of snacks and many other perks. On the other hand, if you are so inclined you might even be able to get gym memberships for free or on the cheap to make up for the lack of “real work” you do all day.
9. No Longer and Insociable Career Choice
While you still can be an isolated programming coding away for hours on end this is becoming more of a rarity. Projects are often large and require enormous collaborative efforts in order to be completed. Conferences and workshops allow you to connect with other professionals and keep up on the latest ideas in the field.
8. Surrounded by Motivated, Young & Intelligent People
Often times tech departments are full of young people fresh out of school who are still very motivated and get excited about new ideas. For instance I work with many people who are still students and we often exchange links to interesting new technologies we find on the Internet. Additionally, if someone gets stuck on something many people can end up searching through the vast information to find a solution quicker. This keeps the work going quickly and makes it more interesting. This is a good environment to work in as opposed to a factory / warehouse where most people hate their job and can’t wait to leave at the end of the day.
Always connected to the Internet, coworkers and valuable information
7. Always Connected
It is a requirement these days to be connected to the Internet if your business has anything to do with technology and this can be a very a good thing. As mentioned previously, this allows for easy communication and collaboration between people and departments. Even if the people are separated across the office, or in a different city / country etc they can still share files, reports and more. Techniques can be researched online and solutions can be found without having to reinvent the wheel each time. Eventually I suppose almost every career may be exposed to this type of thing once the Internet becomes completely pervasive.
6. Often Interesting
Computers in some form have become involved in almost every discipline around. This means that even if your passions isn’t necessarily computers, you could still apply computer science to your own field to help it improve. Computers can help with identifying chemicals in Chemistry, DNA, genes etc in Biology, complex equations and systems in Physics, calculate statistics for Political Science and the list goes on. In each of these fields however there are major obstacles that prevent the experts from doing an even better job at what they do because of the limitations of current computer systems. It may be that they aren’t user friendly enough, powerful enough, or that the problem is just plain impossible to compute in a reasonable time with the methods we have today. Even in the more “average” computer jobs like web design and programming, the job isn’t boring because each day there are new problems. There is always new content to be added to websites, new features to be added to programs and something will often go wrong. This problem solving is what makes it interesting.
IT / Computer Professionals often earn at
least average salaries or higher in Canada
5. Good Pay
In my experience, in Canada at least, most technology workers seem to earn at least the average income or higher. There are usually good promotions, benefits and perks because the companies want to retain the workers since they have paid to keep up their training and education. I’ve also heard a few stories about systems that are running ancient software. Apparently there is a nuclear power plant near where I live that is running COBOL code on a robot that changes the spent nuclear rods from the plant. Since this is a such a vital function they have avoided upgrading the system or changing as much as possible. Now it turns out there is only one person left in North America who knows how it works so they pay lots of money for him to fly in from the US to fix it whenever there is trouble. So the lesson here: outlive everyone else who has worked on the system you are building 
4. All Skill Levels Required
Another reason why you may want to switch into computer science is because computer and IT jobs need people of all skill levels. You can get the jobs with everything from basic certification courses to community college diplomas, bachelor degrees or PhD’s. There is also a wide range of job titles you could hold: IT / Tech Support, Web Designer / Developer, Programmer, Analyst, Administrator, Database Designer, Resarcher, Team Leader etc… Once you are in the door at a company if you keep upgrading your education you should be able to keep climbing the ladder as well. Experience and Education are valued at many places.
3. Retraining Encouraged
Retraining is often encouraged for technology workers. Especially at the larger, successful companies. They want to maintain a competitive advantage and do not want to be seen using old technology. This means they may even pay for you to take upgrading courses or even for portions of diploma or degree programs. This is also extremely beneficial for the employee because as training increases they can demand more money, and at the same time they become more valuable to the competition. It also ensures that if you do loose your job later that you may have an easier time being rehired somewhere else.
2. World is Dependent on Technology Now
Try imagining a world without any computers, calculators or modern technology. Think slide rules, pen and pencil calculations, tables of sin and cosines etc. It would be impossible for us to keep track of our economies, banking systems, inventories etc. There would be no more long range communications and global business would essentially stop. Technology is ingrained in our lives now and there is no way of going back anymore.
On the other there are still people who do not understand much of modern technology. There are still CEOs who are unable to understand how to apply technology to problems in an effective way. This is where people trained in computer science may be able to help. There is a strong need for people who can communicate highly technical ideas in a way other people can understand so they can make informed decisions.
Computer Researcher
1. Many Problems Still to be Solved
The most compelling reason why you should study computer science is because of the vast amount of problems still to be solved. Computer Science is extremely young compared to Physics, Chemistry and Biology. To me this means that popular ideas are easier to challenge, people are still willing to accept change fairly easily. On top of this, the computer field itself changes so rapidly that what works at one time may not be applicable later. For over the last fifty years or so we have developed many techniques that work wonderfully on “electrical” computers. What happens if we change to computers that use light, or if we use quantum computers? More specifically than that even there are questions like “What is the best way to schedule packets in a wireless network?” in the subfield of wireless research. There are many other questions in many other subfields of computer science as well.
Conclusion
Yet despite all of these questions, we do not have enough people to answer them. Enrolment in recent years in Computer Science hasn’t been great (except since video game courses became popular). Alot of people were afraid after the dot.com bust a few years ago and many people were probably discouraged from taking computer science then. I was fairly worried then as well since I was in the middle of my undergrad degree at the time. Now with the economy doing poorly, computer jobs are quite secure. In the area where I live some of the largest technology companies are still hiring thousands of people (RIM, OpenText). On top of that think of how many businesses require some form of computer expertise. Almost every business larger than a small business where the one person does the job of the technologist themselves. Now is the best time to go and get retrained in computers. If you are Ontario, many of the colleges are even offering money to support it through the Second Career Program.
Categories: Computer Science, Education, Miscellaneous by Jason Ernst
Tags: 2009, Computer, Economy, Education, Industry, Job, Retraining, Science, Students, Study, Why?
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Recent Comments
February 5th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
People shouldn’t be encouraged to take computer science. It is a field for those who need no encouragement.
February 5th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
Thats not true, there are many people who are still making career choices when they are still in high school and may not even realize that may be interested in computer science. There are also people who contemplate switching careers partway through their life. I do however agree that once you have decided to study this area you should need no encouragement if you are to succeed.
February 8th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
Good post, overall.
February 22nd, 2009 at 1:32 am
Making a career choice and getting in is just a start, to stay motivated and pulling it off well is extremely important!
May 20th, 2009 at 6:02 am
[...] Jason Ernt’s blog provides a more detailed list of reason why one should study computer science. And check out Tony Targonski’s blog on how to survive computer science starting with zero background on programming. [...]
June 16th, 2009 at 8:02 pm
It’s a very useful and interesting post you made here.
August 3rd, 2009 at 3:56 pm
I would like to introduce my site http://www.learnsad.com for your reference
November 18th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
I would have to say that I completely agree with this article and Jason’s reply in the comments section. I’ve always been interested in computers, ever since I first laid my hands on one when I was about 10 years old. My uncle always had them and had a great deal of knowledge about them, how they worked, and how to fix them. I spent a lot of time with my uncle and this knowledge was passed onto me and my interest in computers grew. He eventually went on to teacher multiple computer classes at our local community college and owning a few computer repair businesses. He did give me one word of advice though; do not get a degree in a computer related field, claiming that it is often too stressful. Therefore, I took his advice…at first.
When I first enrolled in college, I wanted to go into the nursing program. Not because it was something I knew I would enjoy, but because everyone told me that it would be a secure job and a fairly well paying one at that. After taking a few classes I realized that this was not something that I wanted to do and quickly changed my degree to business. Although the business classes were a whole lot easier, I still didn’t feel comfortable about what my future held for me. I eventually ended up getting my associates degree in general education because I was having a hard time deciding on what I wanted to major in.
It wasn’t until I ran across a website similar to this, explaining the details of a computer science degree and the career of software engineering, that I finally made my decision. A few things discussed in this article made the decision an easy one to me. Job security is extremely important in this economy and the field is continuing to grow. Also mentioned was that it is a very well paying career, which is also very important in my opinion. I’m the kind of person that is always up for learning new things and a better way of doing them, so I have no problem trying to stay up to date with latest technologies, especially since it is one of my hobbies.
I never really even thought about a degree in computer science, much less knew that it existed. My counselors were never much help. I had to research and find out about it on my own. If I hadn’t found out about and taken such an interest in it, I might have ended up wasting my time taking classes for a degree that I would not be happy with. I feel like this degree SHOULD be encouraged to those that are interested in computers, especially since I had such a hard time finding out about it myself.
November 18th, 2009 at 7:35 pm
Thanks for the great reply. I also received similar advice about getting a computer degree. At the time (early 2000s) was about when the first tech bubble burst so of course many people recommended I didn't go into computers. However it was what I loved doing and I've never regretted my choice. It seems if you do whatever you are best at and enjoy the most, with a little luck and hard work, the opportunities, job and money will follow.
February 10th, 2010 at 11:57 am
thanks for this article,it's so encouraging and inspiring for me and other cs students….please continue writing about cs education.
April 16th, 2010 at 10:59 am
I’m starting a career programming, I’ve been programming since I was 9. I’ve, so far, resisted doing a computer science degree, because I think it’ll be either unneeded or more of the same. What reasons would you give me to do a computer science degree?
Thanks for sharing such a well written article by the way.
April 16th, 2010 at 11:10 am
Well it depends on what you are interested in, and how ambitious you are, on whether or not you should take a computer science degree. Generally, in Canada, if you go to college for programming rather than University for a degree, you aren’t as likely to get promoted. University tends to train towards the eventual goal of being an analyst or project manager. In a degree program, you are exposed to a stronger math background such as calculus and algebra which can help if you want to advance into a graduate degree later. Further, this additional math can help you understand why certain algorithms are faster, more efficient etc than others. You are also exposed to a very diverse range of topics at higher depth in University since the programs are generally longer (3-4 years) compared with most college diploma programs (1-3 years). This means in the upper years you can focus on advanced topics such as artificial intelligence / soft computing, advanced computer networks, advanced databases, system performance evaluation, directed research projects etc. The goal of college seems to me to be solely to gain employment at the end. At university the goal is quite different. The focus is on giving you a strong background so that you can use it for many different goals. For some this will be for future research. Others will use the background to create innovative new technologies and business. And of course there are many who will also go into the workforce, but in many different roles. Some will be programmers, some will be analysts, managers or researchers within a corporation.