Here at UW CSE, we are experiencing record interest in our undergraduate major and record enrollments in our introductory courses. This explosion of interest is happening across the country, but UW is doing particularly well among a key demographic underrepresented in the field: women.
When principal lecturer Stuart Reges attended a recent meeting organized by the National Center for Women & Information Technology, he talked about the tremendous growth of student interest in computer science. He shared UW CSE’s enrollment data to illustrate his point: around 2,800 students per year enroll in our first intro course – representing nearly half of the freshman class – and around 1,800 students per year in our second course. These two courses alone account for about 1.6 percent of all undergraduate student units taught on UW’s Seattle campus.
Building on what is already a good-news story, UW CSE is also seeing record percentages of women taking our introductory courses and pursuing our undergraduate major. The 2013-14 Taulbee Survey found that, nationally, less than 15 percent of undergraduate computer science degrees were granted to women. At the UW, 30% of bachelors degrees in the most recent year were granted to women. And we expect this trend to continue: In our first intro course (CSE142), the class is currently 35% women.
A key element of our success has been our undergraduate TA program. CSE has 83 undergraduate TAs helping us to teach the 1,800 students currently enrolled currently in CSE142. Thirty-nine of those TAs are women; at 47 percent, this is the highest concentration of women we have seen in the last 10 years. Seeing young women a year ahead thriving in the field provides the best possible encouragement!
There is more work to be done, but we are proud of the way our commitment to diversity in computer science is helping us to lead the nation in engaging more women in the field!
View our video about the explosive growth in student participation in CSE’s intro courses here.
Learn more about the steps UW CSE is taking to broaden participation in the field here.
February 26, 2015
Seattle Business writes:
“A who’s who of 23 Seattle area leaders including executives from F5, Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Redfin, Concur, Zillow and Apptio sent a letter today to the Washington State Legislature in support of a $40 million capital appropriation for a downpayment on a second building for UW’s department of Computer Science and Engineering. The remainder of the money required to build the $110 million, 130,000 square-foot building would come from private sources.
“Ed Lazowska, the Bill & Melinda Gates Chair in Computer Science & Engineering, who played a key role in raising money for the existing Paul G. Allen Center for Computers Science & Engineering, is optimistic about UW’s prospects for raising private funds to supplement the state money for the second building. In the case of the Allen Center, completed in 2003, Lazowska says, the school received 200 gifts including three gifts of more than $5 million each, seven gifts of $1 million, and dozens of gifts of $100,000 or more.”
Read more here.
February 25, 2015
GeekWire writes:
“A group of 23 technology leaders in Washington state – including representatives of Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, Google and other tech giants – are asking the state Legislature to approve $40 million in capital spending to help fund a new, $110 million University of Washington computer science building.
“The second building, proposed last fall, would allow for a doubling of enrollment in the University of Washington Computer Science & Engineering program. The department granted 315 degrees in June, its largest class ever, but the program is at capacity and was able to accept less than a third of the undergrads who applied in the last admissions period.”
Read more here.
February 25, 2015
The Seattle Times writes:
“Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Zillow: A who’s-who of tech company leaders have written a letter urging the Washington Legislature to fund $40 million of the $110 million cost for building a new computer science and engineering building on the University of Washington campus.”
“The UW’s fast-growing computer science department has already run out of room in its 11-year-old building, the Paul G. Allen Center for Computer Science & Engineering. Securing the money to build a second building is one of the university’s priorities for the current legislative session, said provost and soon-to-be interim president Ana Mari Cauce during a campus-wide meeting Tuesday.”
Read more here.
February 25, 2015
Today, 23 leaders from the State of Washington – from Alberg to Zapolsky … Amazon to Zillow – sent a letter to the Washington State Legislature supporting a $40 million capital appropriation to partially fund a second building for UW CSE, which will accommodate a doubling of our enrollment. (The project is expected to cost $110 million; the remainder will be raised privately.)
The leaders wrote:
“We are writing to express our collective support of the University of Washington’s request for $40 million in the FY 2015-17 state capital budget for the construction of a 130,000 square-foot Computer Science & Engineering building.
“Our region’s computer science community has fast become one of the leading areas for growth and innovation in the country. Home to the world’s largest software company, online retailer, and online travel company, our stellar pool of talent is charting new territory in mobile technology, enterprise software, cloud computing, interactive media and cyber security. The University of Washington is a huge engine for this industry, home to one of the top ten programs
in the nation …
“Please help us make sure Washington state continues to maintain its place at the forefront of the computer science industry and sets a strong base for future growth by ensuring UW can continue to produce the graduates we need …”
Profuse thanks to our friends for this support!
The Puget Sound region is literally the software capital of the world: more Software Developers (Systems + Applications) are located here, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, than in the San Francisco Bay Area. Computer Science is also the field with by far the greatest gap in our state between “jobs available” and “degrees granted.” UW Computer Science & Engineering is by far the leading program in the state at preparing Washington’s students for these great Washington jobs.
A few items that may be of interest:
Washington’s top students deserve the opportunity to become prepared for Washington’s top jobs!
February 24, 2015
Today, UW CSE alum Ben Hindman (B.S. ’07), co-founder of data center operating system startup Mesosphere, offered current CSE undergrads advice on what to do when your path diverges from your plan, as part of our Leadership Seminar Series.
Among Ben’s top tips for students approaching life after CSE: “always be learning” (great advice regardless of what one does after graduation), and “love your co-workers” (emphasizing the importance of picking one’s partners, employees and investors carefully).
Ben’s first stop after earning his undergraduate degree at UW CSE was a brief stint at Google, followed by graduate school at UC Berkeley, where he co-created the Mesos data center kernel as an open source project. Twitter was among the companies that adopted Mesos to better manage resources in running their data center applications, enticing Ben away from academia in the process. Upon leaving Twitter three years later, instead of resuming his studies, Ben decided to go the entrepreneurial route by starting Mesosphere – a venture-backed company that recently surpassed 50 employees.
Ben was generous with his advice and candid about what daily life is like as a start-up executive. When asked about fundraising, Ben urged budding entrepreneurs to make sure they can articulate a compelling story about where the company came from and where it is going, calling it “the most important part of the pitch deck.” He also noted that team can trump technology, and both culture and communication are critical for building a successful company.
Ben closed by noting that in both life and business, there is only a handful of truly important decisions that one has to make along the way. “Figure out those questions,” he said, “and you will know what to focus on.”
Read our previous post on Ben here.
February 24, 2015
Katherine Long writes in the Seattle Times:
“Thirty-five years ago, higher education received 16 percent of the budget … In the last biennium, it received only 9 percent of the budget …”
Read more here. And note overwhelming voter support for increased investment in computer science education here.
February 24, 2015
Tech.Co has “scoured Silicon Valley for 50 women in tech who are empowering all of us to never stop chasing our dreams.”
Number 23 on the list is UW CSE Ph.D. alum Tessa Lau, “cofounder and Chief Robot Whisperer, Savioke. Lau’s passion is building systems that improve people’s lives. Her background in machine learning enables her to understand what roboticists are saying, while her expertise in human-computer interaction drives her to understand people’s needs and build user-focused systems that address those needs. Her goal at Savioke is to guide the development of robots that will revolutionize the service industry.”
See the full list here.
February 24, 2015
Washington STEM, an organization that supports improved STEM education for our state’s students “from cradle to career,” recently announced the results of a poll showing overwhelming support among Washington’s citizens for improved access to computer science education at the K-12 and post-secondary levels.
Among the highlights:
- 85 percent support increasing computer science degree capacity at Washington’s public higher education institutions.
- 90 percent support expanding the number of public K-12 schools in Washington that offer computer science classes.
- 91 percent support training more of our state’s K-12 teachers in computer science.
The poll, which surveyed 647 registered Washington voters, was conducted by Strategies 360, and covered all aspects of STEM education. In this context, the overwhelming support for investment in computer science education was particularly gratifying!
Learn more about the poll results and Washington STEM’s support for computer science education here. Check out a slideshow on the full results of the survey here.
Read previous blog posts on the effort to improve computer science education at the K-12 level – H.B. 1813, sponsored by State Representatives Drew Hansen and Chad Magendanz – here and here.
Learn more about employer and student demand for computer science degrees, from CSE department chair Hank Levy’s testimony before the Washington State Legislature earlier this year, here.
February 23, 2015
Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowships are among the nation’s most prestigious awards for young scientists.
Today, UW CSE’s Shyam Gollakota and Thomas Rothvoss were named recipients of 2015 Sloan Research Fellowships. Shyam and Thomas join 24 previous UW CSE faculty members (plus 3 adjunct faculty members) as recipients of Sloan Research Fellowships – an unprecedented number that speaks to the extraordinary caliber of our young (or, in some cases, formerly young …) faculty members.
Emily Fox, Amazon Professor of Machine Learning in UW Statistics and adjunct professor in CSE, also received a Sloan Research Fellowship.
Shyam is an expert in wireless technology. Thomas, jointly appointed with UW’s Department of Mathematics, is a leader in approximation algorithms, linear and integer programming, combinatorics, network design, and scheduling. Emily is an emerging star in machine learning.
Congratulations to Emily, Shyam and Thomas!
(Our Ph.D. grandchild Alex Halderman at the University of Michigan – a student of UW CSE Ph.D. alum and Princeton professor Ed Felten – also is a recipient!)
Full page New York Times ad from the Sloan Foundation celebrating all of this year’s recipients here.
February 23, 2015
