Hiring Technical People

Is There an Up-Tick in Math/Computer Science Students?

June 9th, 2006

Ok, I sometimes extrapolate trends from little or no data, so be forewarned

Daughter #1 is graduating from high school this Sunday. We went to the awards ceremony last night. There were typical awards in memory/honor of so-and-so, and a whole bunch of recognition awards. But what I was pleasantly surprised at was the number of students (more than 2) who were high up in class rankings, who received national recognition for computer science, and who planned to continue in computer science.

You know my position–that formal degrees are not a prerequisite for a technical career. But for certain positions, such as architects, a degree with the background a technical degree confers, is very helpful.

I don’t know that a half-dozen graduating seniors out of a class of about 400 students is a real “trend” up. But I see more of Daughter #1’s friends who are thinking of studying math, computer science, or engineering than I saw a few years ago. Who knows how many of them will stick with it–I must have changed my major about 50 times in school. But this is a positive sign for me.

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