The State of CS in the US
as seen from Illinois
Marc Snir
June 16
Marc Snir
The Bad News

Fewer students start CS studies



crash of the .com boom in the early 2000’s
fear of offshoring
self-confidence crisis and image/fashion problem
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Jun-16
Marc Snir
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Jun-16
Marc Snir
source Computer Research Association (www.cra.org)
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Jun-16
Marc Snir
The not so Bad News
Top departments did not see significant declines
 IT employment is at record high
 Top companies complain that they are not able to
fill jobs
 Salaries for graduating CS students are higher than
for other engineering disciplines
 Offshoring has had only limited impact and is not
likely to hurt US IT economy (ACM globalization
report -www.acm.org/globalizationreport/)


but adjustments in skills are needed
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Jun-16
Marc Snir
Big Variations are not New
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Marc Snir
IT employment grows faster than
total employment
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Marc Snir
…and is Predicted to Continue so
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Marc Snir
The PhD Production is More Stable
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Marc Snir
PhD Production is Growing


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Enrollments tend
to grow when
economy is less
good
Enrollments less
sensitive to US
economy
Jun-16
Marc Snir
Fraction of Foreign CS/CE Students
is Stable
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
20
03
/0
4
20
02
/0
3
20
01
/0
2
20
00
/0
1
19
98
/9
9
19
99
/2
00
0
19
97
/9
8
19
96
/9
7
19
95
/9
6
19
94
/9
5
19
93
/9
4
0%
(May decline as China and India improve their education)
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Jun-16
CS is becoming less Popular among
Women
Marc Snir
Fraction of female students in CS and CE
in Science and Engineering
60%
50%
40%
Bachelor's CS/CE
Bachelor's S&E
Master's CS/CE
Master's S&E
30%
Doctorates CS/CE
Doctorates S&E
20%
10%
/0
3
02
/0
1
Reasons are not clear
20
20
00
/9
9
19
98
/9
7
19
96
/9
5
19
94
/9
3
19
92
/9
1
19
90
/8
9
88
/8
7
19
86
19
19
84
/8
5
0%
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Jun-16
Marc Snir
Federal Funding of CS Research
2,500,000
2,000,000
1,500,000
total
basic
1,000,000
500,000
x1000
19
86
19
87
19
88
19
89
19
90
19
91
19
92
19
93
19
94
19
95
19
96
19
97
19
98
19
99
20
00
20
01
20
02
20
03
0
Funding per faculty in academia has declined
 Research labeled as basic is becoming more applied

source NSF
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Jun-16
Marc Snir
What is CS, Anyhow?
Constraints on
Information
systems
Foundations
Mathematics of
computation
Physical Sciences
Social Sciences
Economics
Law
…
Computer & Information
Science & Engineering
Computer architecture,
Systems & Networking,
DB & Information systems,
AI (machine learning,
vision, robotics…)
Graphics & HCI
Software Engineering…
Applications
Physical Sciences
(scientific computing,
Science informatics)
Biological Sciences
(computational bio,
Bioinformatics)
Social Sciences
(social informatics,
social networking)
Art & Leisure
(digital art, gaming)
Business
Core Disciplines
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Jun-16
Marc Snir
Where is CS?
A broad view of CS includes research &
education done by different departments and
programs in the US: Computer Science,
Computer Engineering, Information Science…
 Interdisciplinary research and education with
other departments is increasingly important

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Jun-16
Marc Snir
Organizational Models

CS (CSE), EE (ECE), IS as standalone units
CS usually in College of Science (U Washington,
UT Austin); sometimes in College of Engineering
(Stanford, UIUC)
 Boundary between CS (CSE) and EE (ECE) varies


CS+ECE in one department in College of
Engineering


MIT, Berkeley, Michigan
CS as part of College of Informatics


Cornell, CMU, Georgia Tech, UCI
Growing model
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Jun-16
Marc Snir
Globalization

Economies are integrated; companies become
international; research and knowledge
creation are global endeavors; how should
this impact CS Research and Education?
Need to educate a global workforce (international
curriculum, student exchanges…)
 Need to strengthen international research
collaborations

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Jun-16
Marc Snir
THE END
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Jun-16
Marc Snir
BACKUP
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Jun-16
Marc Snir
What is CS, Anyhow?
The study of the theoretical foundations of
information and computation and their
implementation and application in computer
systems (Computer Science)
 The study of how people create, access and
share information and the design of systems
that augment these activities with automation
(Informatics)

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Jun-16
Marc Snir
Who is Funding R&D in the US
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Marc Snir
And Who is Spending the Money
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Marc Snir
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Jun-16
Faculty Growth Top 36 CS
Departments
Marc Snir
800
700
600
500
1--12
400
13--24
25--36
300
200
100
24
06
20
05
-2
0
05
20
04
-2
0
03
20
02
-2
0
02
20
01
-2
0
01
20
00
-2
0
00
19
99
-2
0
99
19
98
-1
9
98
-1
9
97
19
19
96
-1
9
97
0
Jun-16
25
oth
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Inte
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oS
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em
s
Marc Snir
What Research is Done in CS?
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
1997-1998
2004-2005
Jun-16
Marc Snir

Physical constraints become less important,
as compared to social, legal and economic
constraints
May need CS students that study psychology &
sociology, rather than physics


Increasing work done at the interaction of CS
and application areas
Need strong support for interdisciplinary research
and education (e.g., bioinformatics, media…)

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Jun-16
Marc Snir
More Trends

Experimental sciences (and administration & business)
generate massive amounts of information; the core problem
becomes generating knowledge from data
Data management and knowledge discovery become more important
 Massive amounts of information also open new opportunities for CS,
e.g. in NLP.


Computing systems become complex, distributed and
dynamic; they interact with the physical world and mediate
the interactions of large communities


The study of the design of complex systems becomes important;
systems are studied with the physical world and humans in the loop
(sensor networks; social computing)
Society is increasingly dependent on unreliable and insecure
software systems

Trustworthy computing becomes essential; new approaches to
software verification, validation and testing, and new system
integration methodologies are likely to have a major impact
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Jun-16