The only exposure Yancarlos Diaz had to computer science during his high school years in New York City was when he used a computer to write essays. When it came time to apply to college, Diaz, who says he was good in math, "blindly signed up" for the computer science program at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), figuring it was a major that would help him easily find a job when he graduated.
That decision already is paying off.
A number of more enlightened institutions are creating more tenured track teaching positions. An issue not addressed by this article is the tendency in CS to hire in the "hot disciplines". I'm not so sure there is a shortage of qualified candidates, but there is definitely a shortage of candidates in machine learning or systems and we have seen the down side of this in the past.
It strikes me as silly these institutions cannot raise salaries of the teaching CS faculties. Make the starting salary about 150K with guaranteed 5-10 year contracts. These school draw top football and basketball coaches to positions that don't have tenure with high salaries and contracts that guarantee they get paid even if fired. Why not do that for non-tenure track teaching positions.
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