Global CSEd Career Landscape

From Jan-April 2021, we investigated non-academic career opportunities(jobs, conferences, publication opportunities, and fellowships) for CSEd graduate students

What we've learned

Currently, pursuing a CSEd PhD requires a leap of faith that one can overcome issues not only associated with pioneering a new discipline within the host institution but also is often undertaken without knowing what career opportunities will be available upon graduation. Surveys conducted by our team in Spring 2020 and 2021, Community Needs Assessment and CSEdGrad Pathways, with graduate students and advisors document these challenges.

To get support, students and advisors have expressed that they need mentorship when answering several questions. They especially need mentorship in guiding the students in their academic and career paths.

Students appreciate the efforts that the CSEd organizations (conferences) are making as offer an opportunity for them to network with the CSEd community. It appears that when students cannot get support from their advisors or institutions; the CSEd community presents an alternative support structure.

Findings of non-academic CSEd grad Career Pathways from Jan-April 2021

This project also seeks to connect with CSEd graduates internationally. The current graduate student team leading this initiative comes from the United States, the Caribbean (Puerto Rico), Brazil, Thailand, and Scotland (via Botswana).

To gain preliminary insights into existing career opportunities, the team explored their five countries for four months using online research methods.

In total, 83 jobs from 35 different non-academic organizations were reported.

CSEd Job titles

Opportunities by Region

Mind Map

While seeking to promote and share international opportunities in non-academic settings, the researchers are faced with defining CSEd Research, the opportunities that CSEd graduate students can pursue, and how these vary across countries and regions.

The data collected included country, type of organization, job description, and job qualification. Content analysis was used to code collected data into career and organization categories systematically. These categories were then merged and collapsed through an iterative process that led to developing a CSEd career path mind-map. In the end, 15 career path categories and 6 organization categories emerged from these findings.

Initial categories were generated deductively with the guideline from Amy Ko’s blog on career paths, and new categories evolved as well.

Mindmap on non-academic CSEd grad opportunities in USA, UK, Brazil, Puerto Rico and Thailand from Jan-April 2021

Among the emerging themes that the team has found are limited opportunities within the developing countries, the varying definitions and broad requirements for CSEd professions, and the dominant and leading role of the United States and the United Kingdom in CSEd.

The research team understands that this can be an opportunity to create and pave the way to new opportunities within the field.

The current research was reported in the paper Identifying Opportunities and Potential Roadblocks for CSEd Professionals published at ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research. Read the paper here.