and report here the ideas raised in more than 50% of our university interviews.

A negative view of CS, typically false, arose in a number of contexts:

˲ Unhealthy ICT sector in the face of outsourcing;

˲ Fewer opportunities and lower salaries in the ICT sector;

˲ Narrow view of the types of problems addressed in the discipline;

˲ Lack of recognition of the breadth of CS application areas;

˲ Requirement of, and emphasis on, the discipline’s mathematical sophistication;

˲ Stereotypes of the discipline’s students; and

˲ Earlier CS frontiers people now take for granted.

The relative ease of use and ubiquity of general-purpose computing also mask the challenges that have yet to be solved in CS. As computers have become commonplace, students are increasingly less motivated to study them as a discipline.

Negative perceptions of the discipline and the focus on machines rather than on people have been particularly detrimental in attracting women to the field, so student recruitment is effectively being drawn from significantly less than the full high-school population.

 

figure 3: cs master’s (blue, green) and Ph.D. (red, orange) enrollment; source: statistics canada via ict-sitt industry canada presentation (blue, green) and department data (red, orange).

Graduate Enrollment

StatCan MSc Dept MSc

StatCan Ph.D. Dept Ph. D.

3,000

2,500

2,000

1,500

1,000

500

0

1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006

First-year students are often cited as ill-prepared for the mathematically and science-based approaches common in computing in the majority of CS university programs. Explanations for this lack of preparation include a lack of opportunity to be introduced to the discipline in high school; a shortage of teachers with an adequate understanding of CS; a dearth of computing infrastructure in Canada’s high schools; and overwhelmed guidance counselors unable to keep up with the ever-changing discipline or offer comprehensive guidance about IT careers and options.

CS programs in North American universities often exhibit low undergraduate retention rates from the first to the second year. Whatever the reason— incorrect perception of CS, lack of preparation, or loss of interest due to the curriculum—the low retention rate fosters the perception that the discipline is difficult and requires even higher student recruitment numbers.

Finally, CS curricula in North American universities have not adapted to the incoming students or to changes in the industry; CS curricula go stale quickly, and specific topics can be seen by potential students as irrelevant. First-year courses often focus on teaching a computer language to address toy problems like temperature conversion, elevator operations, and simple report generation. The curricula emphasize mathematical accomplishment and typically develop from first principles. Also, Canadian universities often lack mandatory exposure to technology across all their academic programs, leaving fewer

PHO TOGRAPH BY PHILLIP CHEE