Magdalena Balazinska
Assistant Professor
Computer Science & Engineering
July 20, 2006

 You are thinking about majoring in engineering
 You already decided to major in engineering
 You already selected a concentration
 You are considering computer engineering
 You are considering computer science
 All the above are great ideas!

 What engineering is about
 Difference between science and engineering
 Why engineering is an exciting career
 Impacts of engineering on our world
 Impacts of computer science and engineering
 Opportunities in computer science and engineering
 Why engineering is a welcoming career
 Ack: Parts of material in this talk graciously provided by Prof. Ed Lazowska

 Science
 Understand, describe, explain
 Engineering
 Design and build
 “An engineer can do for a nickel what any fool can do for a dollar” (H. Ford)
 Computer science (at least the part that I do) is mostly engineering

 “Fundamental research” and
“application-motivated research” are compatible

Niels Bohr Thomas Edison
Fundamental research
Applied research

Edison
Pasteur; much of biomedical and engineering research
X
Bohr
Concern with fundamentals

 What engineering is about
 Difference between science and engineering
 Why engineering is an exciting career
 Impacts of engineering on our world
 Impacts of computer science and engineering
 Opportunities in computer science and engineering
 Why engineering is a welcoming career

100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
1800
Proportion of American workers employed on the farm
1900 2000

 Academic departments at UW
 Aeronautics and astronautics
 Bioengineering
 Chemical engineering
 Civil and environmental engineering
 Computer science and engineering
 Electrical engineering
 Industrial engineering
 Material science and engineering
 Mechanical engineering

Why computer science & engineering?
 Impact
 Advances in computing drive advances in all other fields
 Advances in computing power the economy
 Not just through the growth of the computing industry – through Multi Factor Productivity Growth throughout the economy
 Advances in computing change the way we live, the way we work, the way we learn, the way we communicate
 Unbelievably cool intellectual opportunities

Exponential progress

Exponential progress
Internet Hosts
1,000,000,000
100,000,000
10,000,000
1,000,000
100,000
10,000
1,000
100
10
1

Exponential progress
Internet Hosts
450,000,000
400,000,000
350,000,000
300,000,000
250,000,000
200,000,000
150,000,000
100,000,000
50,000,000
0

Exponential progress

Exponential progress

Exponential progress

 “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers” -- Thomas J. Watson, founder and Chairman of IBM, 1943

 “Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons” -- Popular Science, 1949

 “There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home” -- Ken Olsen, founder and President of Digital Equipment
Corporation, 1977

 “640K ought to be enough for anybody” -- Bill
Gates, founder, Chairman, and CEO of
Microsoft, 1981 [disclaimed]

Intellectual opportunity
 “… the software industry is going to make more breakthroughs in these next 10 years than it's made in the last 30 … software is really going to transform not just what we think about as the computer industry, but the way that everything is done …”
Re-architecting the Internet
Harnessing parallelism
Quantum computing
Transforming all fields of science and engineering

Sensor-based environment monitoring
Temperature in room 101
Email alert. “Urgent, temp in chair's office is 1 °F too low!”
Temp on first floor
Second floor Third floor

RFID-based equipment tracking

RFID-based equipment tracking

Intellectual opportunity
Wreckless driving
A teacher for every learner
Flattening the world
Prosthetics / augmentation / access
Computing, innovation, and creativity
Personalized
Health care

Intellectual opportunity
Computational biology and medicine
The personal Memex
Transforming the nation’s defense
The end of business travel
Synthetic biology

81%
Projected Science & Engineering Job Openings
(new jobs plus net replacements, 2004-2014)
Engineers
22%
Computer specialists
59%
Social Scientists
9%
Life scientists
4%
Physical scientists
4%
Mathematical scientists
2%
US Bureau of Labor Statistics, November 2005 http://w w w .bls.gov/opub/mlr/2005/11/art5full.pdf

 What engineering is about
 Difference between science and engineering
 Why engineering is an exciting career
 Impacts of engineering on our world
 Impacts of computer science and engineering
 Opportunities in computer science and engineering
 Why engineering is a welcoming career

 Most work is team work
 You get to work with people every day
 The people you work with are really nice people
 But you can also work with customers, lawyers, etc.
 In computer science and engineering
 Most jobs offer flexible schedules
 You may never have to wake up early in the morning
 You may never have to dress up
 You can work from home and be productive
 No one cares if you speak with an accent

 Engineers learn highly portable skills
 Solve problems, build systems, understand principles
 Many different types of jobs
 Can change your type of work throughout life!
 Can couple CSE with business or domain expertise
 Especially in CSE
 Amazing number of different opportunities
 You get to shop around! You should shop around !
 Engineering is an international profession
 Working abroad easier than for other professions

Summary
 Good work in engineering in “Pasteur’s quadrant”
 Advances transformed our nation and our world
 Computer science is the fairest one of all
 Predicting the future is hard
 “To predict the future build the future”
 But it’s pretty clear the best is yet to come
 Tons of intellectual opportunities
 Tons of jobs too!
 Tons of open doors!
 Even more opportunities than before!