UK college courses show decade-long surging interest in computer science – just as new intake was locked down

Figures from UK university admissions service UCAS show computer science has seen a steady rise in popularity over the last decade. The final release of university and college-level application and acceptance figures for the 2020 cycle demonstrate the growing interest in the once less-than-hip subject. Acceptance on courses …

[Anonymous Coward]

Big Mac and fries... Just like a mate who got maths from kings spent 4 years serving...

[Anonymous Coward]

Did they not fancy getting into trading then?

[Doctor Syntax]

A couple of weeks ago the Beeb news site had a story of somebody with a biomedical degree volunteering at the Manchester vaccination centre in his spare time from his regular job - delivering pizzas. It appears nothing much has changed in the British biological job market in more than 50 years apart from the choice of non-graduate jobs.

[Martin-R]

ML with everything

My kids' recent experience of STEM degrees (Maths and Engineering) is that the vast majority of final year projects on offfer have some element of ML or big data, and have done for a few years, so it's no great surprise there's more interested in straight ML/AI/Big Data degrees

[karlkarl]

I kind of see it a little like this. Once people have spent time learning the basics of computers, *then* they can focus on the science, maths and even english or history.

School is so inadequate at teaching the basics of computers, that students are having to study computer science at college or even as part of a degree. Once they know what a file manager is, they are finally ready to start studying what really interests them in an attempt to enter their industry.

Basically schools need to be fixed in so many ways...

[onemark03]

Basically schools need to be fixed in so many ways...

Basically agree but many schools don't have / can't afford the IT resources they need.

[karlkarl]

Re: Basically schools need to be fixed in so many ways...

Could be the case, however I have personally seen so many that seem more stunted by incompetent decisions rather than cash flow.

For example, many schools would be better off selling their collection of iPads* and grab some ex-business surplus Windows 2000 era machines (including the licenses). Teaching an old version of Windows / Office would be far more relevant than not teaching anything at all on a iPad.

As for security (which Windows 2000 is not ideal), just keep it offline and glue up the USB, cdrom drives (and floppy drives). iPads don't have these anyway. If a class *needs* online work, then they should think long and hard as to why. If crucial (i.e fiddling about with the UCAS web stuff), then just have a room dedicated to fullscreen web browsers running on Linux (perhaps even Raspberry Pi).

*I may sound like I am hating on iPads but I really mean any locked down platform. Android, Win S, etc.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Basically schools need to be fixed in so many ways...

"(perhaps even Raspberry Pi)."

Better be careful there. Pi OS (the Raspbian replacement) has quietly added a Microsoft repository which phones home. Fortunately Devuan for the Pi doesn't.

[Old Used Programmer]

Re: Basically schools need to be fixed in so many ways...

Try to keep up... The repository link doesn't phone home. It does what every repository does: download an updated index of what it has when apt update is run. The repository can be deleted from the list of repositories.

*If* you download VSCode and actually use, that "phones home", but that can be disabled.

Or you can go all out and install and compile OSS Code from source and bypass MS altogether.

[J.G.Harston]

Re: Basically schools need to be fixed in so many ways...

But that's "Office Skills" - today's equivalent of 19th century "using a pen and paper". WTF do you need a degree to be able to type?

People are confusing and conflating "how to type"/"how to drive a car" with the IT equivalent of "automotive engineering".

[Version 1.0]

Re: Basically schools need to be fixed in so many ways...

Schools try hard but when the class computer fails to boot the teacher usually has to ask my daughter to fix it for him - she can normally get it done in 30 seconds.

[Will Godfrey]

Well it's a start

The biggest obstacle of all is that the people who think they run the country totally despise any form of science, engineering etc. so anyone at the sharp end it likely to be given unrealistic directions and be paid peanuts.

[codejunky]

Re: Well it's a start

@Will Godfrey

"The biggest obstacle of all is that the people who think they run the country totally despise any form of science, engineering etc"

This has to somewhat be called into question due to the covid/vaccine procurement. This gov put a lot into the logistics, manufacture and resource support while allowing the actual companies do what they are there to do. Also they are promoting autonomous vehicle research etc.

[fnusnu]

Why don't humanities studesnts look out of the window in the morning? They need something to do in the afternoon.

[Dr. G. Freeman]

As a furloughed physicist, I resemble that remark !

[Mast1]

Cruel joke ?

In my uni days, once, after 4 morning lectures in engineering, I went round at 1 pm to see a friend who was on the political science course. He was a still in bed. In the best possible light, he could have had an "essay crisis" the night before.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I was sick of constantly being in lectures or labs durng my science degree while my arts friends stayed in bed during the morning.

[Korev]

Back in Uni I went round to visit my victim at the time after I'd finished in the lab; she was still in bed after 5!!!

[Kubla Cant]

Decline in humanities

One of the possible causes for the decline in interest in humanities is the craze among woke faculties for "decolonising the curriculum". Literature courses now consist in studying works by authors selected on the basis that they, or presumably their compatriots, never colonised anywhere. Latin, of course, is right out on account of the Roman Empire. One benighted university has terminated the study of English Language, no doubt because anyone who speaks English is an imperialist bastard.

Decolonising STEM is a bit more tricky, despite efforts to attribute all the discoveries and inventions of dead white males to somebody else.

[ecofeco]

But what's the point?

All the IT jobs are outsourced or soon to be outsourced or temp/contract jobs.

Fewer and fewer people have any real long term career benefit from working in IT.

[J.G.Harston]

Re: But what's the point?

If they're aspiring to do an IT job, WTF are they doing a computing science degree?

"I wanna be a bricklayer, so I'm doing architecture"

Alternatively, WFT are employers recruiting IT staff requiring a computing science degree?

"We need some bricklayers, advertise for somebody with an architecture degree"

Alternatively, WFT are universities calling their IT Admin courses "Computer Science"?

At the end of this bricklaying course you'll get a degree labelled "Architecture".

[Boris the Cockroach]

When are

we getting the flood of applicants to us engineering types (we're the E bit in STEM).

Oh yeah we're looked down on even by the IT guys locked in the basement where the servers are kept (mind you, cant blame 'em... today's activities at Roaches 'r us injernears were fixing a burst oil hose , mopping up said oil spill, removing the oil contaminated coolant from the sump, cleaning the pickup filters while I was there and refilling.... and that before the complaints about oily hands on the new laptop started ... )

The problem is that all technical type jobs require people to be trained up to do them, which takes time (and money) and said techies need experience at coping with the job whether its writing a recursive program to do a backup of the current databases or repairing said hose without complaining(too much)

Much easier to waffle on in a non technical role while noticing that manglement all seem to be from the non technical side and paid way more than the techies.

plus its easier on the brain/cleaning bill than struggling to debug code/get the damn hose to fit even if its the same damn part number as the busted one. grrrrrr

[trevorde]

Advice to the graduating class of 2025

Don't work for IBM. That is all.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Advice to the graduating class of 2025

That comment would be more appropriate in an Indian focused website!

[J.G.Harston]

But what is a "computer science" degree? And what job do the people doing them expect to do? Most of the IT admin staff I encounter did something called "computer science", so either they are actually doing a university course in office admin - wtf???? you need a *degree* to do that???? and misrepresenting it by calling it "computer science" - or they are being ripped off getting into heavy debt studying something highly technical in order to do office admin.