The Profession of IT

R ising crescendos of voices sound alarm about the sharp downturn in young people selecting a computing field for their careers [10]. In the U.S. this is true for computer science, computer engineering, information technology, information systems, and software engineering. In computer science, the numbers of incoming freshmen fell by 60% between 2000 and 2004. The percentage of all college freshmen planning a major in computer science dropped to 1.4% in 2004, down from its peak of 3.4% in 1998 and below a trough of 1.6% in 1992–1993 [7]. To compound the problem, internal drop rates of 35% to 50% are common. Meanwhile, IT job projections are positive. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics forecasts job growth in all computing specialties of 20%–50% by 2012, except for computer operators (decline) and programmers (flat). Finding people to fill the growing number of IT jobs will soon be more difficult than ever. In the U.K. a similar trend is evident. Between 2000 and 2004 the numbers of applicants for computer science programs went from 24,151 to 13,715 and for software engineering programs from 1,892 to 917. They also