Intro to Computer Science overtakes Econ as Harvard’s most popular class

fortune.com

3 points·ekm2··4 comments

Once again the freshman class at Harvard proves they're not stupid. There's a shortage of computer scientists, one being to some extent filled by immigrants, and since that represents an opportunity that economics and other majors doesn't offer, people are proactively taking on this opportunity.

The only drawback is that existing computer science courses probably won't train the students in the skills the marketplace needs. Consider how many now-famous captains of tech industry dropped out of college when they realized this -- Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, Larry Ellison, Michael Dell.

Oh well. To save time listing them, I will just say that most tech leaders that come to mind are college dropouts. But not all -- Elon Musk is a counterexample, a college graduate, and a spectacularly successful one.

Dropping out seems to work if one had significant programming experience before getting to college.

I'm not so sure. Amongst those I know who program, the ones who finished college are doing better. I think there is a tremendous difference between on the one hand 1) engaging in schooling, finding an opportunity that is more valuable (along some metric) than schooling, and pursuing it; and on the other hand 2) deciding you don't need schooling and spending time just looking for those opportunities (it is frequently difficult to get a good sense of whether you are pursuing them effectively, and they may not come in any event).

I've often wondered why majors in Software Engineering aren't offered. The situation is as if we skipped over Electronics, Mechanical, or other Engineering majors and insisted that Physics covers it all. There's a reason that engineers are not trained in quite the same ways as scientists.

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