Computer science graduates have excellent job prospects and are in demand from companies based in many industries including traditional software/hardware companies (IBM, National Instruments, HP, Sun Microsystems, Apple and Google) and technology start-up companies. They produce the software and systems that touch lives every day in fields ranging from communications to finance to publishing. They are, of course, software developers, but also have become teachers, writers, doctors, lawyers, scientists, military leaders and entrepreneurs. They work at some of the largest, most influential companies in the world, at research institutions, non-profits, and at the smallest start-ups of every type imaginable. And many lead highly successful companies that they themselves have founded.
For the 2015 graduates from the Department of Computer Science:
- 81% participated in an internship, co-op or field experience
- 93% were employed with 6 months of graduation
- 76% were in a position directly related to their major
Many graduates of the program also go onto pursue graduate studies, gaining admittance to top schools such as MIT, Princeton, Harvard, Cornell, Stanford, University of California Berkeley, and the University of Texas at Austin.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects:
- Median 2016 pay for computer and information research scientists was $111,840; and
- That 2016-2026 job growth for computer and information research scientists will be 19 percent, “much faster” than the average for all jobs.
At CU Boulder, Computer Science graduates with a B.A. earn less than the nationwide average of comparable majors as reported by PayScale. CU Boulder alumni in this discipline earn an estimated annual salary of $75,184 based on a pool of 89 alumni who graduated between 2014 and 2018. This amount is also lower than the average for all CU Boulder graduates with a bachelor's degree, according to a survey by Esmi Alumni Insight of 25,000 alumni who graduated between 1989 and 2018.
Career Services offers free services for all CU Boulder degree-seeking students, and alumni up to one year after graduation, to help students discover who they are, what they want to do, and how to get there. They are the bridge between academics and the world of work by discussing major and career exploration, internship or job searching, and graduate school preparation.