Why Computer Science?
Ed Lazowska
Bill & Melinda Gates Chair in
Computer Science & Engineering
University of Washington
October 2013
http://lazowska.cs.washington.edu/ncwit.counselors.pdf
Forty years ago …
Credit: Peter Lee, Microsoft Research
With forty years hindsight, which had the
greatest impact?
 Unless you’re big into Tang and Velcro (or sex and
drugs), the answer is clear …
 And so is the reason …
EXPONENTIALS
US
Exponentials are rare – we’re not used
to them, so they catch us unaware
18,446,744,073,709,600,000
4,294,967,296
16,777,216
65,546
256
1
2
4
8
. . .
128
Every aspect of computing has experienced
exponential improvement
 Processing capacity
 Storage capacity
 Network bandwidth
 Sensors
 (Astonishingly, even algorithms in some cases!)
You can exploit these improvements
in two ways
 Constant capability at exponentially decreasing cost
 Exponentially increasing capability at constant cost
 Ditto the Internet
1,000,000,000
100,000,000
Number of hosts
10,000,000
1,000,000
100,000
10,000
1,000
100
10
1
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010
In the past 20 years (1993-2013), the number of Internet hosts and
the number of transistors on a die each have increased 2000x!
The most recent ten years …
 Search
 Scalability
 Digital media
 Mobility
 eCommerce
 The Cloud
 Social networking and
crowd-sourcing
In the next ten years,
we’ll put the “smarts” in …
 Smart homes
 Smart cars
 Smart bodies
 Smart robots
 Smart science (confronting
the data tsunami)
 Smart crowds and humancomputer systems
 Smart interaction (virtual
and augmented reality)
Advances in computer science are central to
tackling every national and global challenge
Medicine and Global Health
Energy and
Sustainability
Education
Scientific
Discovery
natural
mobile
language
processing
Transportation
sensors
big
data
CORE
CSE
HCI
machine
learning
cloud
computing
Neural
Engineering
Elder Care
Security and
Privacy
Technology for
Development
Interacting with the
Physical World
Accessibility
And there are jobs out the wazoo:
nationally …
Science & Technology Job Growth (2010-2020)
1,400,000
1,200,000
1,000,000
800,000
New Jobs
600,000
New Jobs +
Replacements
400,000
200,000
Computer
Specialists
Engineers
70%
85%
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
60%
Life
Scientists
Physical
Scientists
Social
Scientists &
Related
Occupations
And there are jobs out the wazoo:
nationally …
Annualized Job Openings vs. Annual Degrees Granted (2010-2020)
300,000
250,000
200,000
Job Openings
150,000
Degrees Granted
100,000
50,000
0
Computer
Science
Engineering
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, National Science Foundation
Life
Sciences
Physical
Sciences
Social
Sciences
And there are jobs out the wazoo:
and regionally …
High Employer Demand Occupations at the Baccalaurate Level.
2010 Supply compared to 2014-2019 Demand
Computer Science
1,665
Health Professions
2,137
Engineering
912
Life Sciences and Agriculture
205
Physical sciences
112
1,171
397
663
98
151
2010 Completers Entering the Laborforce
500
1,000
1,500
2,000
2,500
3,000
Additional Supply needed each year to meet demand 2014-2019
Source: Washington State HECB, SBCTC, and WTECB: A Skilled and Educated Workforce,
2011 Update. Analysis of Employment Security Department and IPEDS data.
19
UW Computer Science & Engineering
 Ranked among the top 10 programs in the nation
(of >200)
MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Illinois,
Washington, Princeton, Texas, Georgia Tech, Caltech,
Wisconsin, Michigan, UCLA, UCSD …
 Two undergraduate programs
Computer Science (College of Arts & Sciences)
Computer Engineering (College of Engineering)
 > 300 degrees per year
~200 Bachelors (growing to ~250)
~85 Masters
~25 Ph.D.
 Admission
“Regular Admission” for UW students who have fulfilled a set
of prerequisites (math, physical sciences, computer science,
etc.)
Offered twice each year – for autumn and spring quarters
~70% of majors
 “Accelerated Admission” for students who do extremely well in
our introductory courses
~15% of majors
 “Direct Admission” for top high school students
Offered in the spring, for autumn quarter, coordinated with the
UW Admissions Office and the UW Honors Program
~15% of majors
 Extraordinary students
Fully 1/3 of the UW class medalists since 2000 have been
CSE majors
Our “fair share” would be 2%
 A deep commitment to providing a top-tier
undergraduate education
Winner of 5 UW Distinguished Teaching Awards
Winner of the inaugural UW Brotman Award for
Instructional Excellence
In a typical quarter, CSE has 2/3’s of the top-performing
instructors in the 10-department UW College of Engineering,
according to student course evaluations
9 of the top 10 instructors in the most recent quarter
 We produce students who can design and build stuff
Emphasis on teamwork and design
80% of undergraduates do at least one internship
50% of undergraduates participate in faculty-guided
research
#1 school in the nation in students recognized in the past 10
years in the Computing Research Association “Outstanding
Undergraduate Researchers Award” competition
A top-5 supplier of students to Amazon.com, Google, and
Microsoft (along with MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, and
Carnegie Mellon)
The predominate supplier to many leading smaller firms
headquartered here
UW CSE 2011-12 Student Destinations
Did not report,
7%
Graduate
school, 13%
Amazon.com,
Google,
Microsoft, 32%
Small
companies or
startups, 31%
Other large
companies,
17%
 Tech companies that can be choosy, choose CSE
Why a research-intensive university?
 What can we uniquely do?
Get students into the lab
Make them our partners in discovery
Prepare them for life-long learning at the forefront of
knowledge and society
There is no field in which this is more important!
 Erin Earl
Overlake School -> Robinson Center Transition School ->
Robinson Center Early Entrance Program
Triple major in Music, Piano Performance, Computer Science
UW Dean’s Medal for the Arts
Indiana University Conservatory (3 months)
Google (5 years)
Harvard Law School
Clerkship in the United States District Court for the
Eastern District of Virginia
-> Clerkship in the United States Court of Appeals for the
Ninth Circuit
 Raymond Zhang
Robinson Center Transition School -> Robinson Center Early
Entrance Program
Double major in Biology, Computer Science
Undergraduate research in computational biology
Goldwater Scholar
Piano performances at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center,
Benaroya Hall
2013 UW Dean’s Medal in Engineering
-> UW CSE 5th year Masters Program
 Christophe Bisciglia
Gig Harbor High School
UW CSE
Google (5 years)
Cloudera, Inc. (Founder) (2.5 years)
WibiData (Founder and CEO)
 Emma (Lynch) Nixon
Ballard High School ‘07
UW CSE ‘11
Undergraduate research on Games for Learning – Refraction
SDE intern at Microsoft
SDE at Microsoft
Implications for K-12 education
Computer Science in K-12, 1983
IBM PC XT
4.77 MHz 8088
128 KB RAM
PC DOS 2.0
Computer Science in K-12, 2013
401 page report
15 page index
 In 9 out of 10 high
schools nationwide,
computer science is not
offered
 In 36 of the 50 states,
computer science does
not count towards the
math or science
graduation requirement
Yet computer science – “computational thinking” – is a key
capability for just about every 21st century endeavor
Is this a great time, or what?!?!
http://lazowska.cs.washington.edu/ncwit.counselors.pdf