Why you should study computer science

If you are wondering what to study, you should probably consider Computer Science. Why, you may ask? Here's why!

Job options are great

When it comes to financial security, many people are taught to put all their eggs into one basket, their education. I have some strong opinions about this, and I will address these issues in future blog posts, but let’s assume you decided to do that. The degree you get, will ultimately set the course of the rest of your life. Now consider spending 5 (of the best) years of your life constructing this basket by studying a subject, only to end up unemployed the day you step out of college!

The problem with some educations is, that the job market works just like the regular market. Supply and demand. And just like the regular market, supply and demand will fluctuate, sometimes unpredictably. When supply of people with your degree is high, but the demand is low, not only will you be paid less than expected, but you will also have a hard time finding a job. So when you need to choose your education, take a business decision! What is the average annual demand for your degree and how many people are graduating each year with that degree?

In America alone, there are 10 times more unfilled job positions every year according to the Computer Science Education Coalition:

"There are currently over 500,000 open computing jobs, in every sector, from manufacturing to banking, from agriculture to healthcare, but only 50,000 computer science graduates a year."

According to the EU commission Europe will be short of over 800,000 IT workers:

"Despite rapid growth in the ICT sector, creating some 120,000 new jobs a year – and despite high unemployment, especially among the young – Europe could face a shortage of more than 800,000 skilled ICT workers by 2020."

Career switching is easy

One of the biggest emotional issues a person can face, is being stuck in a job they hate. Sadly millions of people face this issue today, and quitting is nearly impossible without ending up in the streets. The person might have a big mortgage and loans to pay off, and quitting their job to learn new skills isn’t an option.

This is where the beauty of computer science comes to play. As specified earlier, job positions are endless. But also the variation of jobs is huge. If you study Sports science (in Denmark at least) you are very prone to become a High-School teacher, if you are not pairing it with something else. However, if you graduate as a computer scientist, and you decide that you want to be a front-end web developer, fine. But if you loose passion for it later, you can always get a new job as a back-end developer (in the same company or a new one). If you are tired of web developing all together, hey, no problem. Try mobile development. Still bored? Try becoming a data analyst, a game developer, an IT consultant, web designer, a network engineer, a database manager, heck, go teach High-School!

Endless possibilities to work for yourself

If you either never intended to work for someone else, or don’t want to anymore, you can always work for yourself. Sites like freelancer.com, udacity.com, upwork.com etc. can get you started in a matter of minutes. You can actually sign up today, list your skills, search for an assignment, solve it for someone living on the other end of the world, and get paid. However it isn’t always easy to get the assignments, even though there are plenty of them. Many people are making a living off of this, and are spending a lot of time marketing themselves and piling up good reviews. If you want to become a freelancer, just keep in mind that it takes more work than it seems to.

Your other options are obviously creating a website, blog, YouTube account, Online Store, indie app development. Of course some of these anyone can do, but you will occasionally run into technical issues, and being an IT expert will give you an edge.

Creating a one-man business or partnering up with a few others to create a start-up, are also very attractive and frequently grabbed opportunities by tech experts. It is cheaper than running a physical business and requires virtually no office, just your laptop.

Technology is progressing fast

Remember your first phone? and your age, when you got one? How about your first personal computer?

Now consider that children down to 3 years old get tablets to their birthday, not because they are spoiled, but because it is becoming a standard. We have become much more reliant on technology since you and I were kids. Not just on a personal level, but as a society too. Our banking systems, health care, medicine research, news, transport and even books (think e-books and audio-books) are all highly dependent on technology.

The world’s banking systems are reliant on a programming language written in the 50’s, COBOL. The average COBOL developer is over 50 years old. If not enough young developers learn the language, the banking systems will collapse, unless we find a way to re-code the huge amount of code bases to a modern language.

Advancements on research of advanced gene therapy follows the advancement of computer hardware very very closely. To map the human genome, huge amounts of data had to be processed. It took years of computer processing to sequence the first human genome, now we can do it in about a day. The cost of this fell from $10,000,000 to $1,000, and it is getting cheaper!

So technology is progressing in such a fast pace today, that some people cannot keep up. Just consider how hard it is for elderly people today. I myself have taken part in developing an app for Midttrafik. Midttrafik coordinates all bus-traffic and a few railroads in the central region of Denmark. Their plan was to stop selling physical 10-trip ticket clips, and selling them on your smartphone instead. After we released the app, many elderly people and small children were in an inconvenience, since they didn’t know how to order one or didn’t have a smartphone. My point is, if you want to keep up with society, you should probably keep up-to-date with technology, even if you decide not to study IT.

Student loans are unnecessary

There is so much free information online, that it amazes me that many employers are still not recruiting people without degree’s. Especially in the IT market, where you can literally learn all the sets of skills needed for a job. Actually me and my classmates are already learning more from the internet, than from lectures. Most of us attend only half or less of the lecturers, and instead we watch YouTube videos on the subject or google the issues we have in assignments. I haven’t read a single of my schoolbooks. In average I manage to read around three chapters in the book instead of 28.

So it is definitely possible to get qualifications for a job in IT without having any degrees. I think in the future more and more people will choose self study and put our outdated education system in the trash. This will force employers to look at qualifications rather than a sheet of paper with unimportant grades..

These were the five reasons that convinced me study Computer Science. The last reason however, does not apply to me, since I live in Denmark and education is free. But did I convince you?

Why/why not?

Let me know in the comments below!