The Straits
Times,
Mar 12, 2016
Once shunned by top students, computing degrees are now finding
favour, with applicants being attracted by better job prospects and
working in technology firms.
Higher demand for courses offered by the National University of
Singapore's School of Computing pushed up the grades of students it
accepted last year, putting it on a par with other competitive
courses like law, medicine and business.
Last year, 90 per cent of the A- level students accepted into the
school's courses, in areas like computer science and information
security, had at least three to four As, up from Bs and Cs in
2013.
Professor Lee Wee Sun, vice-dean of the undergraduate programme at
the school, said it has not seen this proportion of high-scoring
students in a decade.
NUS also recorded a 28 per cent rise in applications for its 450 to
500 undergraduate places in computing programmes.
"Potential students are finding computing an interesting area, with
good prospects," said Prof Lee, adding that tech start-ups and
firms such as Google coming to Singapore have made the field an
exciting one.
Technology is also increasingly "part of firms' main strategies to
gain a competitive advantage" and is a core function in a range of
areas from data analytics to designing solutions, said Prof
Lee.
The Smart Nation push here, to use technology to make daily living
more convenient, also helps to boost the image of and recruitment
in IT fields, he added.
According to a survey, NUS computing graduates enjoyed a 5 per cent
rise in employment rates and a 6 per cent rise in median starting
salaries last year, compared with 2014.
In particular, those with a computer science degree saw a 9.1 per
cent jump in their full-time permanent employment rate last year,
while computer engineering graduates had the biggest pay jump among
those who took NUS courses, from $3,500 in 2014 to $4,000 last
year.
By next year, another 15,000 specialists may be needed in
Singapore, to work in fields such as cyber security, data analytics
and application development.
To meet this need, NUS launched a new degree in business analytics
in 2013 and a new degree in information security last year.
The first course takes in about 60 students a year, while the
second admitted about 20 students last year and hopes to enrol 30
students in the new academic year in August.
This year, NUS is introducing a new data science and analytics
degree - offered jointly by its School of Computing and science
faculty - to groom more data scientists.
From this year, some NUS computing courses, such as information
security and data science, will also be open to other faculties'
students to pursue as second majors or minors.
NUS provost Tan Eng Chye said the aim is to make computing subjects
more accessible to all students so that they are exposed to this
fast-growing industry.
"You name any business sector - the role of data science is there,"
he added.
Prof Lee said: "We don't want students to do (computing) just
because of the money, but more because of their interest and
because they find it fulfilling."
It helps if companies value them and their skills, the way society
respects lawyers and doctors for their work, he added.
Mr Tham Shi Yuan, 21, a business analytics student, said:
"There's a lot of innovation involved in figuring out better
decisions using data."
The first-year student, who scored five As for the A levels,
added:
"I like that it's on the front line, and we're making decisions
that directly impact businesses, and can be applied in many
industries."
For first-year student Lee Yan Hwa, 20, who scored five As and a B
for the A levels, computer science was a clear choice as her
fascination with it started in primary school where she learnt
simple game programming.
"I like creating things and solving problems. The mathematics and
statistics can be challenging but it's more fun that way," she
said.
"Programming seems to be a skill in demand these days; even my
seniors have taken up summer jobs to teach kids coding."
This article was first published on March 12,
2016.