The top 10 companies in Silicon Valley employed a lower percentage of Hispanics, African-Americans and women in 2005 than they did a decade ago, according an article earlier this week.
It’s an issue I’ve covered over the years, so I was interested to see that while the collective work force of those 10 companies grew by 16 percent between 1999 and 2005, the proportion of Hispanic workers declined by 11 percent, to about 2,200; they now make up about 7 percent of the total work force. Black workers declined to 2 percent of the work force, down from 3 percent.
The share of women in the Silicon Valley-based work force was 33 percent, dropping down from 37 percent in 1999. Asian workers increased to 49 percent from 45 percent, and white workers declined to 44 percent from 45 percent. The trends continue into the management ranks.
What gives? And is anything being done about it?
One answer may be the choices students make as they look at possible careers. At Stanford University, overall enrollment in computer science programs dropped after the technology bust in the early 2000s, and the percentage of women enrolling declined more than the overall percentage. The same trends were evident nationwide.
Rather than curse the empty seats in computer science classes, Mehran Sahami, a Stanford University professor and associate chair for education in the computer science department, led an effort to revamp the curriculum to make the subject more appealing to students. His excitement about the field is evident in the YouTube video of him above. (Last week, we described efforts to stem cheating in computer science classes).
The revamped curriculum consolidated the core required courses to six, down from 15, and allowed students to not only specialize in subfields like artificial intelligence and computer graphics but also allowed classes in other areas, like studio arts or human computer interaction count toward their computer science requirements.
Before it rolled out the new curriculum, the university first consulted a few technology leaders, like Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft; Paul Otellini, chief executive of Intel; and Alfred Spector, the vice president for research and special initiatives at Google.
The result after the first year: The number of students choosing computer science as a major jumped 40 percent, to 123. That continued this year with another 20 percent increase, Mr. Sahami said. And the percent of women declaring computer science as their major is increasing, he said.
I spoke to Mr. Sahami. His comments have been edited and condensed:
We found there’s a strong correlation between the perception of the high-tech economy and the propensity to pick computer science as a major. Factors such as the 2000-2005 bubble burst and articles about outsourcing created a perception among students and their parents that these skills were being commodified.
When the large drops in computer science enrollment happen, there’s even a larger drop in women enrolling. If 20 percent of women make up a 100-person class, a woman might look around and feel there’s some sense of community there. If enrollment drops, you see just 10 women and that sense of community lessens. The accelerating effect happens and it creates even more isolation.
We redesigned the curriculum because we wanted to modernize and create more options for students and to provide a larger tent of what computer science covers. We didn’t want students to think computer science is about sitting in a cube writing code for 60 hours a week.
We found half of the increase in enrollment has to do with the revamped curriculum and half has to do with macro economic factors. The weakness in the economy makes computer science seem more of a stable career path to follow.