Combining management and technology in a master's degree for information system professionals

Abstract

By the early to middle 1970's it was clear that education in computer science and related fields was failing to meet many of the needs of business and industry. In self-defense, many firms adopted the practice of hiring PhD's to lead programming projects (on the grounds that the PhD's were bright). Other firms chose to hire bright Bachelors, most of whom had little or no formal training in programming or software engineering (on the grounds that bright people could learn on the job). A side effect of these practices was that most of the PhD's were being siphoned off into industry and were thus unavailable to staff the rapidly growing computer science departments in higher education. At the same time, bright computer science Bachelors were enticed directly into industry by high salaries, and thus did not pursue advanced degrees. These factors were no doubt part of the reason for the severe shortage of computer scientists available to higher education.