Give tech a chance: with the number of computer-science majors declining, Bill Gates is touring colleges to talk up the computer industry.Bill Gates (person) Bill Gates - William Henry Gates III, Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft, which he co-founded in 1975 with Paul Allen. In 1994 Gates is a billionaire, worth $9.35b and Microsoft is worth about $27b. , who founded Microsoft at age 19, has been on a campaign tour recently, trying to reinvigorate his base, as they say in politics. The number of students majoring in computer science is falling. So Gates went stumping at universities, telling students disillusioned dis·il·lu·sion tr.v. dis·il·lu·sioned, dis·il·lu·sion·ing, dis·il·lu·sions To free or deprive of illusion. n. 1. The act of disenchanting. 2. The condition or fact of being disenchanted. by the dot com dot com - com bust that they can still make a good living, even as the computer industry sends some jobs, like software programming, abroad. "Will this create more competition? It will," Gates told students at M.I.T. (the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Massachusetts Institute of Technology, at Cambridge; coeducational; chartered 1861, opened 1865 in Boston, moved 1916. It has long been recognized as an outstanding technological institute and its Sloan School of Management has notable programs in business, ). "It means the U.S. will have to keep its edge in skills." But about fears of widespread programming job losses, he says, "people are way overreacting." BONDS, NOT BYTES Gates urged students to stay in computer science. Matthew Notowidigdo, who will receive a master's in computer science from M.I.T. in May, has chosen not to. Instead of a career as a software engineer, Notowidigdo, 22, is heading to Wall Street and the bond-trading desk at Lehman Brothers Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (NYSE: LEH), founded in 1850, is a diversified, global financial services firm. It is a participant in investment banking, equity and fixed income sales, research and trading, investment management, private equity, and private banking. . Gates, who personifies technological optimism and the potential payoff, sought to reassure students that their futures were no less bright in an era of outsourcing. "I'm excited about the future of computing, and I'm excited to see how each of you can contribute to it," he told students at Harvard. Nationally, the number of under graduates in computer science of computer-engineering programs is down 23 percent this year. "What we have to emphasize is that a good computer-science education is a great preparation for almost anything you want to do," says John V. Guttag, head of M.I.T.'s electrical engineering electrical engineering: see engineering. electrical engineering Branch of engineering concerned with the practical applications of electricity in all its forms, including those of electronics. and computer-science department. ANOTHER MICROSOFT? That was the central theme of the Gates tour, which included stops at Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, M.I.T., Harvard, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Early years: 1867-1880 The Morrill Act of 1862 granted each state in the United States a portion of land on which to establish a major public state university, one which could teach agriculture, mechanic arts, and military training, "without excluding other scientific . His message was that computer science was on the cusp of breakthroughs in areas like speech recognition and artificial intelligence. One student asked if there could ever be another tech company as successful as Microsoft. "If you inventn a breakthrough in artificial intelligence so machines can learn," Gates said, "that is worth 10 Microsofts." Steve Lohr covers technology for The Times. |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion