Seat Computers at the Cool Table

Harvard generally doesn’t respect “teen comedy” stereotypes. Jocks also play for the chess team, debaters and newspaper editors are received like rock stars, and family money is treated like a terrible secret. But despite all the culture-defying norms on campus, computer nerds are still consigned to the short table at the activities fair. The Harvard College student group directory doesn’t even have a category for internet or computing organizations, probably because there are more martial arts clubs than computing clubs.

Sure, there’s the Harvard Computer Society and political websites run by students like VoteGopher. Facebook started as a site run by Harvard students. But the culture of the university does not support these endeavors as though they have equal validity to political, athletic or performing arts programs. There is no institutional advocate for computing like the Office for Arts. Even on the Crimson, most editors are not taught how to update the website and significant changes are made by a dedicated IT staff. There is a campus-wide attitude that worrying about how computers work is someone else’s job.

The explanation must be cultural. Worrying about how computers work certainly pays well, even in comparison to the investment banks or hedge funds that so many undergraduates are dead-set on joining. Many of Harvard’s most successful alumni, especially if you include Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates, have been computer programmers. Seven of the top 15 richest Americans made their wealth in computing. With Wall Street reduced to a shell of its former self, there is more reason than ever for Harvard students to consider computer skills as a ticket to the Silicon Valley.

Plus, computer and web proficiency isn’t just for those who want to get rich quick. Scientists in all fields use computer analysis and simulations for research. Teachers and aid workers need to understand computers well enough to spread computer literacy to those who don’t have it. The internet in particular provides the world’s underprivileged with opportunities that were historically unthinkable, but that opportunity can only be realized if someone proficient can show them the way.

Moreover, every Harvard graduate benefits from knowing how to make a website, which has become a necessary marketing skill. It’s also extremely helpful to understand how RAM functions or the difference between a CRT and an LCD monitor. Harvard graduates are especially likely to be alone in some foreign locale with their laptop as their only lifeline. If something goes wrong, they will need to know how to fix it. Students who will be publishing anything in the future, be it academic or creative, need to understand how online publishing differs from print and what rights they have over their material uploaded to the web.

Some changes in the Computer Science department are encouraging. In the past few years, CS 50 has included lessons on XML and PHP, which are used in websites, and class enrollment has been growing dramatically, especially among women. However, CS students do nearly all of their work using Unix, an operating system from the 1970s, rather than Windows or MacOS. There are no undergraduate classes in managed languages like C# or Java, which are widely used by corporations to develop software quickly, and the one undergraduate class on the internet, CS143, is really intended only for concentrators.

Harvard has never been a pre-professional university, and students expecting to slide down a greased path into a stable career would be best served at another school. In this respect, the Computer Science department is no different from other departments like Economics or Music. But a set of computer skills that were almost unheard of a decade ago are now vital in the marketplace, and not just for technical careers.

I’m also not saying Harvard has to make a course in intermediate computer literacy part of the General Education curriculum. But Harvard is obliged to encourage the cultural notion that computer and internet proficiency is a good thing, if not a necessary or even a cool thing. More funding should be allocated towards speakers, seminars and programs that educate Harvard students about computers and reinforce the notion that it’s not geeky to understand them. The Berkman Center for Internet and Society, a law school center which focuses on the internet, should be just as important to undergraduates as the Institute of Politics (IOP) is now.

There are a few signs of extracurricular progress. Even The Lampoon, a semi-secret Sorrento Square social organization that used to occasionally publish a so-called humor magazine, has a technical board. Harvard Undergrad TV (HUTV) is expanding and now includes videos from the Crimson designed for the web. But more progress has to be made to extend opportunities for computer learning.

Until then, to paraphrase Bill Gates, quit looking down on the computer nerds. You might end up working for one of them.

Adam R. Gold ’11, a Crimson editorial writer, is a physics concentrator in Adams House. His column appears on alternate Fridays.