Dec. 8, 2009

The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed a resolution designating Dec. 7-12 as "National Computer Science Education Week" to recognize the critical role of computing in society and the need to expose students to the opportunities it presents.

To commemorate the week, CSU Monterey Bay's School of School of Computing and Design will host a panel discussion highlighting career opportunities in the field. Representatives from Silicon Valley giants Google, Yahoo and Cisco Systems as well as the Naval Postgraduate School will talk about opportunities in private industry and the government for qualified computer scientists. The panel discussion will be held from noon to 2 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 10 in Room 118 of the Media Learning Complex.

"Computer science education relates directly to issues of innovation and competitiveness," said Kate Lockwood, a professor in ITCD who helped to organize CSUMB's event. "Students proficient in computer science can expect strong demand for their skills in well-paying jobs when they graduate."

A study by the National Center for Women and Information Technology at the University of Colorado at Boulder found that U.S. universities will be able to supply only half the necessary computer science workers by 2016.

CSUMB offers bachelor's degrees in computer science and information technology, and communication design. A master's of science is offered in instructional science and technology.

The second week in December was chosen in honor of Grace Murray Hopper, a pioneer in computer science, who was born Dec. 9, 1906. She is credited with inventing the first compiler, a program that translates other peoples' programs into machine code that computers can run. She also engineered new programming languages and developed standards for computer systems that laid the foundation for many advances in computer science from the late 1940s through the 1970s.

For more information, contact Dr. Lockwood at klockwood@csumb.edu.

Photo shows Rear Admiral Grace Hopper, USN, with other programmers and the Univac 1 in 1957