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Bill Gates to Finally Receive His Harvard Degree
coondoggie writes "It's not like he needs it to beef up his résumé, but the world's richest college dropout finally is getting his degree. Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft, will speak at Harvard University's commencement ceremony in June and, like all commencement speakers, will receive an honorary degree from the institution. It's hard to guess if Gates, the wealthiest person in the world and co-founder of a company that brought in $44 billion in revenue last year, cares. But the programming whiz who once dropped out of Harvard will likely feel some sense of satisfaction."
I tend to view the bachelors degree as the high school diploma of the 21st century...
so I guess that makes the honorary degree something akin to a rich man's GED.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
Bill Gates has already received honorary degrees from several other institutions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates#Awards_and _recognition
Yawn!!!
It's hard to guess if Gates, the wealthiest person in the world and co-founder of a company that brought in $44 billion in revenue last year, cares.
Well, he certainly must care, as he's obviously not doing it for the money.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
doesn't count! He'll never be able to get a CS job with that!
I though that was the usual honourary gift to the successful.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
now maybe he could get past the resume screeners and get a job at Google? It's good to see him do something with his life now.
In other news, Harvard University has just been granted 10,000 honorary Vista licenses and 10,000 Office 2k7 licenses...
Finally his parents will get off his back to go back to school and do something with his life!
I don't think so.
Recently somewhere I read that there was a 'driving game' in some msdos distribution, and that it was awful (at best). Well, BillyG thought it was good enough to stamp his name in the credits for programming.
Pumbaa! I don't wonder; I know.
Bullshit, he wrote Clippy!
Sure, going to college for 4 (or more) years can teach a person some good information. But the skills learned from life experience are usually much more important!
I have no degree but take college courses (adult continuing education) that interest me. At some point in most of them, the prof will usually add a remark like: "...but of course we know that's not how it works in the real world."
I'm not saying that they're teaching the wrong things in college, just that the average 18 year old will be learning mostly best-case theory. Most of the actual skills are learned during the early years in the workplace.
Seems like it would be a better process to work in your desired field for a few years, then go for the degree. Or, at least participate heavily in an apprentice program. But I do realize that some career fields are not compatible with this paragraph.
Love or hate the guy, he's certainly earned degree equivalency. Business Administration, most likely; they said in the article that Harvard doesn't announce which subject in advance.
If it's computing science, then I'd probably have a few words to say.
At Bently College, when we gave Jerry from "Ben and Jerry's" ice cream and honorary degree, he brought with him a truck of free ice cream. So much so that every student and proffessor willing had a freezer stuffed with the stuff afterwards... What will Gates do, give all the students copies of WIndows Vista? Thats a bit like someone dousing the students with STD infected blood...
Now who should get an honorary Harvard degree is Hugh Heffneir, for his buisness empire... Maybe he would pass the bunnies around...
3 degrees of separation from Vladimir Putin
You've seen his code? I think we have a problem here...
Gaining unauthorized access to code is a violation of the DCMA. Please turn yourself in to your local police station and await charges there. I believe the RIAA wants in on this one, too.
I don't like Linux. This doesn't make me a troll.
Half of the people haven't even been charged with a crime in a competent court let alone convicted.
It's nice that you assume that the Administration is innocent until proven guilty. I just wish they would return the favor and practice due process with their victims instead of engaging in rendition, torture, indefinite detention, disappearances, and etc all before any legal trial. I'd rather live in a republic than a junta.
------ Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government.
Let's not forget that while Bill Gates is a shining example to college dropouts everywhere, he still did not get to where he is today by his wits and ruthless business strategies alone. He also had to stand on the shoulders of the engineers and programmers that wrote Windows, MS Office, etc. and most of those people were precisely the type of nose-in-the-air snoots with a college degree who didn't follow his example and drop out. Now you can probably defend your self by pointing to the quality of Windows, MS Office and other Microsoft products, which is perceived to be rather low in some quarters and argue that Bill hasn't been well served by those programmers and engineers anyway. I'd say that any shortcomings in Microsoft products are probably more the fault of Microsoft's management and it's history of practicing an approach to development and product testing schedules where marketing issues outweigh quality and proper development practices (i.e. Just develop it really fast... And who needs thorough software testing anyway?? It burns up to much time and drives up costs.) than they are the fault of the programmers and engineers who have to abide by them. I can remember what Windows 3.x and 98 used to be like, I can see how much of an improvement Windows XP and Vista are today. Neither is perfect mind you, my chief complaints with Windows 98 for example used to be: stability, lousy security and a UI that almost drove me insane with useless questions and endless 'Apply' buttons followed by far to many obligatory reboots. Microsoft has now more or less tackled the stability issue, they seem to be getting mildly serious about security but their UI still sucks although there are fewer reboots these days which is a plus. So Micosoft's management has learned quite a few painful lessons about the importance of professionalism and discipline in software development over the years since Windows 3.x and 98 came out, they have learned it the hard way and they seem to be learning mostly by falling on their faces.
</rant>
"We notice you've made a lot of money and are therefore wise. We also notice you're not getting any younger, and you're giving away money. If you see anything you'd like to endow, please be in touch."
It's not the dot-com era anymore, companies aren't going to hire 17 year old dropouts as sysadmins. Your case was a complete one off, you may as well advise people to buy lottery tickets for a living.
Then maybe he'd have a better understanding of Ethics.
-R
From this page everything becomes limpid: http://www.siel.harvard.edu/2003/about/tour/classr ooms/maxw.jsp
: "The Maxwell Dworkin building was built with funds donated by Microsoft Chairman William H. Gates III and Microsoft President Steven A. Ballmer, both members of the Class of 1977, in memory of their mothers, Mary Maxwell Gates and Beatrice Dworkin Ballmer. Maxwell Dworkin building opened in 1999 and, with its extensive office and laboratory space, will allow Harvard to double the size of its computer science faculty over the next several years."
(Slide of Bill Gates' inbox comes up, showing "Ref1nance your morgage!").
However, sometimes they hit just by random chance.
(Next message in inbox is about "U.N.I.V.E.R.S.I.T.Y.D.I.P.L.O.M.A.S").
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
- George Washington
- Marquis de Lafyette
- James Monroe
- Andrew Jackson
- Winston Churchill
- Nelson Mandela
That's real company.Remove the caps and hold to a mirror.
What skills are involved in admining boxes?
Things I learned in college
1. algebra
2. calculus
3. data structures
4. algorithms [sorting, searching, etc]
5. compiler theory
6. numerical analysis
7. and a host of practical courses, etc.
And what do I do for a living? Software developer in the field of cryptography. So I need the math, algorithms, etc, etc. Yeah, granted I too taught myself a lot of my skills [like crypto], but to say college was a total waste because I had to sit through a "intro to C" class is ignorant.
Maybe if you had a job that required talent you'd be talking differently. I'm sorry, but setting up servers, changing network settings, etc, isn't exactly a skilled labour. I mean it's a job, but don't pretend you're some tech god because you can make Apache start and host a page.
Sorry for knocking you off your high horse, but you're advice is ignorant and misleading.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Well, he and Allen wrote BASIC for the MITS Altair 8800 by scratch on an emulator and cross-assembler with no documentation to go by.
But, from what I understand, Gates was the Steve Jobs of Microsoft, while Paul Allen was the Steve Wozniak. Gates took care of the business and marketing, mostly, while Paul did most of the coding.
Thanks,
Mike
Went back to collage under a pseudonym and got his own damned degree.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
That's definitely not true. Not sure where this sort of thing comes from.
These honorary degrees are nothing but another PR stunt. Hey, maybe this is troll material, but having Bill Gates as a potential wealthy donor on your side never hurt anyone. Give him the honorary degree, make him feel very good, and donations, donations, donations. Had Bill Gates not risen to become the chairman of Microsoft, Harvard would have paid him no more mind than a fly on the wall. As other slashdotters have pointed out, Steve Wozniak went back to college and earned his degree.
"At the same ceremony Harvard honored Steve Balmer's Contributions by giving him a Chair."
Gates began programming at age thirteen, at fourteen, he was clearing $20,000 a year at this game. In 1973 he co-authored and published a paper a paper on algorithms with computer scientist Christos Papadimitriou. Bill Gates That is moving damn fast and damn far for a "whiny wannabee."
Microscoft was founded in 1975. In Japan in 1978.
Microsoft was dominant in programming languages for the microcomputer in 1980 and not an unknown quantity to IBM. Gates promised to deliver a serviceable, low-cost, OS in time for the scheduled launch of the PC. Nothing more. But these were the words IBM needed to hear---and they weren't coming from Kildall.
You snooze, you lose.
I am not happy. That's my alma mater. (Well, not so alma, and not so mater either, if you get right down to it.) I'm glad that's not my graduation year. Imagine having to sit there and listen to this guy gas on about the value of hard work while he's kneecapping as many companies as he can get at, pushing for as many cheap H1-B workers as it'll take to put those nice little Harvard grads right out of a job, and generally just being Bill Gates.
(I'll admit the Gates Foundation does good philanthropic work, but for that I credit his wife. I never heard of him doing that stuff before he got married.)
The other day my bf B. was telling me about a low-level tech candidate he had interviewed for some support work in his department. The guy had a great-looking resume that consisted mainly of "in-the-industry" experience. He "implemented" this, "organized" that...B. asked him about 20 questions in all. Mix-n-match. From very basic, to very complex issues, and no theoretical, textbook stuff. You had to be there to fix it. It was appropriate, given that this dude ws claiming most of his qualifications from field experience.
He managed to answer from 20, oh, about one question. He got stumped on 19 other problems that he was supposed to be at least familiar with. His resume was a hoax. The "implementation" entries apparently meant that he carried PCs around for some project. No, really.
It's hard to properly qualify this type of candidate. This is how sometimes morons get hired into companies, and end up being a drain of resources and a problem waiting to happen, that most often their peers or boss will have to fix. Morons get stuck into jobs in the next cube beside people like you and me and they entail an ugly and exhausting cycle of damage control. All this to say, a college degree will at least indicate that the candidate is not a bum-off-the-street building a CV on fabrications, trickery and subterfuge. Saves time for most employers IMO. And if the person has proved that they can learn in school, they can likely learn and train to do well on the job.
Microsoft put the "sucks" in "success".
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
"Programming whiz"? I've heard others say this also, but what exactly was Billy boy so good at (besides sending nasty letters to early innovators)?
I'm under the impression that he made his mark by announcing vaporware and then coming up with something quick (primarily using someone else's work), before showing it off to potential buyers (e.g. QDOS, Altair BASIC interpreter).
Geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won't leave you alone.-rms
Harvard does NOT consider one a dropout if you have passing grades (Which he did; he did quite well actually). I'm in the same boat. When you have passing grades and you leave you are officially on a leave of absence. (I guess they can't fathom that anyone with passing grades would ever drop out of their venerable institution)
Oh and on all the comments about him being a lousy coder: I call bullshit on that. I have worked on PDP11's, CPM machines etc... Virtually non-existent documentation, cosing in assembly, extreme memory constraints etc... This is the guy who rewrote a basic interpreter on the plane to his customer using paper and pen....
You might not like the guy (I wonder why, I've never met him so I'm fairly neutral on the whole thing; Also how many people do you know giving billions of dollars to charity?). but one does not become that wealthy by being an idiot!
Hajo
Hajo Monogamy: Belief so strong that millions of people end perfectly good relationships in order to start a new one.
I hope Mr. Gates understands that life is difficult for recent graduates. His first job post-degree will likely be an entry-level position without glamour or sufficient compensation. The dog-eat-dog world of corporate America isn't for everyone. Perhaps he won't get too put off by the whole thing.
If Gates is such a great coder, he should release the source to prove it!
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