In the movie The Graduate , Dustin Hoffman’s character, Benjamin, is famously given one word of advice on his future: plastics. If the 1967 classic were remade today (please don’t), the word would be: software.

Of course, most graduates (or dropouts) won’t be the next Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, or Bill Gates, but in a shaky economy like this one, if there’s a safe, bankable major it’s in computer science. This conclusion is supported by our recent InformationWeek IT staffing report, which found that companies are anxious to hire security and application development talent, as well as application delivery and database management pros.

Our survey also found that the largest needs–where companies are looking to hire the most IT people–are in application development. Among the survey respondents who said developers are a top need, the majority said their companies will increase such staffing by up to 10% over the next two years. Others have much greater needs.
Network Computing