In higher education, the number of computer science bachelor’s degrees follows boom-and-bust market trends in finance and technology—growing when times are good and plummeting when economies crash. And since 2010, computer science majors have again been on the incline, after a major drop off following the Dot-com bubble burst. But what have we learned from these patterns? And what can it tell us about the future?
Mehran Sahami, professor and associate chair for education in the computer science department at Stanford University, has witnessed and tracked these patterns closely. He offers insights about the past and what students and educators interested in CS should consider going forward.