Are these Trends Permanent?

Paul Penfield, Jr. Professor of Electrical Engineering Head, Department of Electrical    Engineering and Computer Science Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 (617) 253-4601 penfield@mit.edu https://mtlsites.mit.edu/users/penfield/

Increasing Interest in Computer Engineering and Computer Science

Many of us are noticing this trend

Sometimes accompanied by less interest in EE

Questions for this session:
Is this trend widespread?
Is this trend permanent?
Is this trend felt similarly by different types of departments?
How should we cope with it?

I will try to address the first two questions

Other speakers will address the third
School of Engineering (e.g., Dartmouth)
Department of EECS (e.g., Berkeley)
Department of ECE (e.g., CMU)
Department of EE (e.g., Stanford)

All of us will have to deal with the last

MIT Actual Data

Interest in Computer Science is [insert your word here]

Is This Trend Widespread?

The Plural of "Anecdote" is "Data"
Here is some Data, from NEEDHA members

Informal survey of NEEDHA members, March 1998
300 universities surveyed
42 responses

Typical % of total students in CE, CS, or some combination
Recently rising; now between 50% and 80%

EE enrollment
19 down, 7 flat, 5 up
CE enrollment
0 down, 3 flat, 28 up, 4 new programs
CS enrollment
1 down, 4 flat, 18 up

Is This Trend Permanent?

Fundamental Reasons for this Trend

Change in Society
Computation, information, communication more pervasive
Enabled by predictable advances in microelectronics
Fueled by exciting "killer apps" (e.g., spreadsheet, DTP, Web)
Booming job market
At all levels: Bachelor's, Master's, Doctoral
Student choice of a career in computing is rational

EE, CE, and CS are all changing rapidly

Increasing power of hardware, software, networks
Decreasing cost of computation, electronics
Boundary among these technologies is rapidly changing
Students have to optimize designs across these boundaries

Are EE, CE, and CS really distinct disciplines?

Or are they specialties within one discipline?

Coping

Preferentially hire CE and CS faculty
A lot of junior faculty cannot decide if they are EE or CS

Prepare faculty for cross-teaching

Add new degree programs

Increase Teaching Assistants

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One final note -- a quote from my survey:
In talking with students, some stated that our strong 3 course CS intro sequence, taught by excellent teachers, seduced them into the CS track. To address this, we are ...