Computers Put New Job Field on the Map
Cypress College can’t train enough people to fill the job openings, and it can’t find enough instructors to teach the subject, either.
The field of geographic information systems--using computers to combine sophisticated data with layers of colorful maps--is sizzling on university campuses. From community colleges to graduate studies, GIS programs are rapidly expanding as the subject spreads through academic departments and into government and industry, from police departments and municipal governments to anthropologists and salesmen, to anyone who needs to combine location with statistics. Wherever a map was useful before, you can find GIS.
“It seems very hot,” said John Wilson, chairman of USC’s geography department. “We know that in terms of students getting jobs and the difficult time trying to hire staff for our research lab.”
When Wilson needed to hire a technician to oversee programs at USC’s new GIS lab, he was forced to keep raising the salary and lowering the experience required of job candidates. He offered the position to a woman with a master’s degree and just 10 months’ experience. The salary was $60,000 a year.
“She turned us down,” he said. “That wasn’t enough.”
The growth in GIS has been nearly as explosive as that of the stock market. Seven years ago, 2,000 people attended the annual users conference put on by Redlands-based Environmental Systems Research Institute Inc., the world’s largest GIS software company. More than five times that many are expected at this year’s gathering in San Diego.
As the industry has grown, so has the number of colleges teaching the subject. “It’s the job market that has been driving the growth,” said Michael Phoenix, Environmental Systems’ manager of university services. “Students hear about jobs out there and pressure faculty to put programs in place.”
Five years ago, about 10 community colleges across the country and about 350 four-year schools were teaching GIS, Phoenix said. Today, it’s taught in more than 475 community colleges and 1,100 four-year schools.
Environmental Systems estimates that an additional 50,000 to 75,000 people are using GIS each year, though colleges and universities are training only about half that many.
The shortfall has created a classic supply-and-demand problem. Cypress College, for example, gets more calls for the $17-an-hour technicians its professional program turns out than it can supply.
Cypress, where GIS became part of the curriculum in 1997, has been a leader in bringing GIS to the classroom.
The school received an $800,000 grant to train secondary and college teachers around the country in GIS during two-week summer courses. When the second round is finished this year, 105 teachers will be able to take it into the classroom.
GIS amounts to putting a map into a computer and being able to plot thousands of variables on layers of map. A city planning department might pull up a map with streets marked on it, push a button and add sewage lines, push another button and add fire hydrants, push some other buttons and bring up the power poles, then bring up the telephone lines.
Police departments use it to study crime data. Sears uses it to route delivery trucks. Archeologists use it to mark layers of time and objects they find.
But what has swollen the ranks of GIS students is the subject’s expansion beyond geography and urban planning and into political science, anthropology, business and almost any subject where space or location are factors.
Michael Goodchild, a UC Santa Barbara professor and leading GIS expert, said he thinks the subject soon will be taught in elementary schools.
“I think it’s a convergence of interest on the parts of schools and the technology getting simpler,” he said. “I don’t think there’s anything inherent in GIS you can’t teach at a very early level.”
