Majority of Undergraduates Plan to Continue Pursuing Computing

During the spring semester of 2014, we asked a sample of undergraduate students who were graduating/had graduated during the 2013-2014 academic year about their plans for the after graduation. 84% of students planned to continue pursuing computing in some capacity. The vast majority of students (62%) had plans to work in a computing field right after college. Of the full sample, only 9% planned to pursue a PhD in the field of computing.

Notes on the sample: Total N = 384. Students were graduating from the following distribution of Institution Types: 64% PhD granting; 16% Terminal M.S. granting and B.S. granting; 17% B.S. granting only; 3% missing information. The Gender distribution of the sample was as follows: 27% women; 72% men; 1% no response. The Racecomposition of the sample was as follows: 21% Asian; 4% African American/Black; 5% Hispanic/Latina/o; 8% Mixed Race; 57% White; 5% Other/No Response. Students’Citizenship status was as follows: 89% U.S. citizen; 2% permanent residents; 7% non-citizens with temporary visa; 2% missing information.

These data are brought to you by the CRA’s Center for Evaluating the Research Pipeline (CERP). CERP provides social science research and comparative evaluation for the computing community. To learn more about CERP, visit our website at https://cra.org/cerp/.