Harvard CS Concentrators Jump Again

During my time as Area Dean for computer science, the number of computer science majors at Harvard more than doubled.  Growth has continued, and according to the Crimson, we're now clearly the second largest concentration at Harvard.  (It looks like we just barely surpassed Government last year, and now we're clearly larger.  Economics is still bigger.)

When you consider that Applied Math is the 4th largest major group, and that's a group that is largely composed of people who do some mix of Math/Computer Science/Economics, I think the numbers actually underestimate the growth in CS at Harvard. 

It's been an exciting time since I started at Harvard in 1999.  One could see what was coming.  Though, sadly, the administration still seems far from having caught up -- we (like many other CS departments) really could use some more resources coming our way.   Universities are a bit slow to respond (sometimes for good reasons), and the speed of these changes is, in context, just remarkable.  And, I'd have to say, have added to the fun of being a CS professor.  Back in 1999, CS was incorrectly perceived to be a backwater at Harvard, small and unnoticed, but where there was a lot of excitement and energy.  Fast forward less than two decades, and now we're clearly at the core of Harvard and its future.