Computer Science Classes See Dipping Enrollments

At the height of the dot-com boom three years ago, students packed into computer science classes, often hoping to snag million-dollar jobs after graduation.

Now, with the stock market falling, enrollment has plummeted, and the computer science department is trying to figure out how to lure students back.

The numbers are bleak.

Three years ago, 262 undergraduates crowded Computer Science 50: “Introduction to Computer Science I.”

Last semester, only 91 enrolled.

The downturn has been reflected in other classes in the department.

Computer Science 51: “Introduction to Computer Science II” has seen enrollment drop by more than 50 percent in the last three years.

Enrollment in Computer Science 121: “Introduction to Formal Systems and Computation,” which is required of all computer science concentrators, has dropped 33 percent.

According to Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis ’68, who teaches CS121, the recent drop has precedent.

“This is not the first correction we have seen, looking at decade-scale enrollment trends,” he wrote in an e-mail. “In the 1970s, enrollments in the first computer science courses were over 500, as high as 700 one year as I recall. These things do ebb and flow.”

Director of Undergraduate Studies in Computer Science Steven J. Gortler says he does not see the dropping enrollments as a problem.

“Smaller classes, from a teaching perspective, are very nice since classes have been growing faster than we could accommodate them,” Gortler says. “Now the question is whether or not [the department] will still be pressured to grow at such a high rate.”

However, he says informal talks are ongoing that could lead to changes in the infamously difficult introductory computer science courses.

Gortler says that any plans are still very much in the works.

Students often complain about the intense workload of the introductory courses and the competition from students who learned to program computers in grade school.

“I didn’t take CS50 because I didn’t want to get discouraged my very first semester,” says Lukasz Strozek ’06, a prospective computer science concentrator currently enrolled in CS51.

“I think its a very bad introduction to computer science, bad for both beginners and people with experience, because it’s busywork,” he says.

Other students say they are discouraged by the high level of knowledge expected in the introductory classes.

“I thought CS50 could have been a good introduction, but the term introduction is a bit misleading,” says Magda Kowalczykowski ’03. “It’s a good, in-depth course, but its not good for people who have never tried [computer science] before. It was just way too fast, and it was all about getting the problem sets done, not about getting the underlying concepts.”

The Economy, Stupid?

According to Gortler, the enrollment decline seems to coincide with the dot-com bust.

Lewis says he agrees.

“At the height of the dot-com bubble, a certain number of students thought a computer science degree would be a ticket to instant millions,” Lewis wrote in an e-mail. “A drop of 20-30 percent seems to me a sensible correction.”

A survey conducted by the Collegiate Employment Research Institute at Michigan State University in the fall of 2001 found that job offers for computer science majors were down 17 percent from the year before.

Despite a tough job market, though, nine current and former computer science concentrators interviewed for this story said that job prospects were not a concern in deciding whether or not to stay in the concentration.

Some students have suggested that the problem may not lie with the introductory courses or the economy, but with poor teaching and advising in the department.

“The teaching fellows sucked,” says Kowalczykowski, who now concentrates in government. “My CS50 teaching fellow was a sophomore English concentrator who had no idea how to teach. And the advisors didn’t know anything. They just didn’t care.”

James R. Griswold ’04, a computer science concentrator, also cited poor advising as the department’s main weakness.

“I feel like I have absolutely no contact with my advisor,” Griswold says. “I’m not sure he knows my name, and I took one of his classes last semester.”

According to Gortler, the computer science department is aware that students are dissatisfied with the current level of advising.

“With a smaller concentration, better advising should be possible, but some structural changes might be helpful as well,” Gortler wrote in an e-mail.

However, Gortler also wrote that he believes the quality of teaching fellows in the department is very high, citing good CUE guide reviews and university-wide teaching awards.

According to the CUE guide, in the 2001-2002 academic year teaching fellows, in both CS50 and CS51 were widely described as “helpful” and “knowledgeable.” Over 50 percent of the students in each course found sections “helpful” or “essential.”

And not all students feel that the introductory courses CS50 and CS51 need to change.

Griswold said the courses are hard, but good and well-run.

Some students who had little or no previous experience prior to CS50 recommend the introductory sequence as well.

Hana Habayeb ’05, a computer science concentrator who described herself as extremely unskilled with computers when she arrived at Harvard says she enjoyed the introductory courses.

“I think everyone should be a CS concentrator,” she says. “And I got that from CS50 and 51.”

But with empty seats proliferating in computer science classes, the job prospects for teaching fellows—if not the students—remain grim.

—Staff writer Christina M. Anderson can be reached at anders6@fas.harvard.edu.