University of Washington recruiters from Amazon.com, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft shared information on the majors of the students they hired from UW in 2011-12 for both internship and permanent positions. This includes all students (every degree level, every major, every UW campus), and all positions (from developer to accountant).
The results are amazing, even to us – see the attached charts. (Capsule summary: 85% are from CSE!)
The University of Washington has many outstanding degree programs. (There are more than 175 undergraduate majors!) They fill a wide variety of student needs, and a wide variety of employer needs. All of them equip students for success.
But if you’re a top technology company such as Amazon.com, Facebook, Google, or Microsoft – a company that can choose the best students from UW and the nation – who ya gonna hire? The answer is clear and overwhelming: CSE!
Here’s another amazing statistic. Each year, UW awards 4 “high scholarship” medals – to the top student in the freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior classes. Since 2000, 52 of these medals have been awarded. Seventeen of these medals have gone to CSE students – fully 1/3 of the medals awarded. (CSE accounts for about 2.5% of UW’s undergraduates – our “fair share” of these 52 medals is a bit more than 1.) See the winners here.
These are among the reasons why expanding CSE’s capacity is so important – to students, and to the region. (An excellent NPR piece on that subject here.)