Silicon Valley: The Land of Opportunity

Carnegie Mellon's campus in the Silicon Valley is a sun-drenched asset that's tucked in among high-tech corporate giants and major universities—a great place for technology innovators like Carnegie Mellon.

Carnegie Mellon is recognized worldwide for its leadership in information technology research and education. The Silicon Valley is the capital of the computer business, a bastion for entrepreneurs. Since 2002, the university has had a campus in the NASA Research Park in Moffett Field, California, building partnerships with the business community and establishing excellent academic programs.

Carnegie Mellon has built a strong foundation, and now we're deepening our commitment to the Silicon Valley location. Under the leadership of Pradeep K. Khosla, dean of the College of Engineering, the university has developed a plan that will fully integrate the Silicon Valley campus with the Pittsburgh campus in terms of both research and education and create an enterprise that will garner worldwide attention.

"The university is committed to making the Silicon Valley location an extension of the main university," says Khosla. Efforts are underway to expand and strengthen the offerings there, and the College of Engineering is prominently involved.

Silicon Valley: The Land of Opportunity
The initial idea for a presence in Silicon Valley began in 1999 when James Morris, then dean of the School of Computer Science, traveled to California to drum up industry support for computer science. Conversations and planning over the next couple of years led to the 2002 opening of the campus in Silicon Valley complete with NASA funding, a relevant and high-quality curriculum, students, founding donors who believed in the cause and a beautiful location in the heart of the Silicon Valley.

What nobody anticipated was the financial crisis that hit the Valley. The campus opened its doors as the Silicon Valley’s economy was spiraling downward. "In 2002, companies were less worried about their software being reliable and more concerned if anybody was buying it. We believed that there would be lots of support here, but then the bust," says Morris, continuing, "The university could have abandoned the campus, but it didn’t. People had faith in it and contributed to its founding. This campus is a long-term strategic bet."

Riding out the economic turbulence proved difficult, but the university stuck to its course. The fact that Carnegie Mellon survived the upheaval in the Valley indicates that the high-tech community values our education and research capabilities. "Today Silicon Valley is back," says Morris. "We are in constant contact with companies, such as Google, Nokia, SAP, Motorola, Microsoft, HP and IBM."

Responding to the Needs of a Global Economy
With the momentum on the upswing, it became clear to Khosla and others that to promote growth of the Silicon Valley campus and ensure its sustainability, its ties to Pittsburgh must be strengthened. In the areas of engineering, computer science and public policy, Carnegie Mellon is a powerhouse. Carnegie Mellon's might comes from the summation of all of its colleges, research enterprises and the efforts of the university community. Our combined strengths support every campus bearing the name Carnegie Mellon, whether that campus is in California or Qatar. The campus in the Silicon Valley is not a stand-alone operation.

In this vein, activities at the California campus were carefully evaluated. Until now, students there earned master's degrees in software management or software engineering on a part-time basis. These part-time programs evolved because many of the school’s students have full-time jobs and want to accelerate in their careers. Carnegie Mellon Silicon Valley carved itself a niche with these programs—no other school in the vicinity offers comparative high-quality graduate programs on a part-time basis. Now there is demand among recent grads for Carnegie Mellon to offer a broader range of programs on a full-time basis.

Carnegie Mellon thrives when its education and research programs work in tandem, and full-time programs contribute significantly to a robust research climate. "The part-time programs serve the needs of people working in the area, but we have to do more than that. In the new strategy, the part-time programs are being augmented with full-time master's and Ph.D. programs that will recruit students from all over the world," says Khosla.

Responding to market needs, the College of Engineering developed education programs that have West Coast components. "Students, domestic and international, who want to be entrepreneurs in IT—in areas such as software engineering or management, information security, and mobility—want to go to Silicon Valley because that is where they can network and learn how innovation is implemented," says Khosla. "I have always believed that CIT should embrace the world and operate beyond Pittsburgh. We have established successful graduate programs outside of the U.S., and now we are going to do the same in California. We are going to leverage our strengths in engineering, information technology, security and innovation in an environment that is rich with opportunities. Our faculty and students in the Silicon Valley will be in close proximity to key industry people, top companies and thousands of alumni."

To learn more about the history of the Silicon Valley campus, the new strategies for a global reach, and all of the program offerings, read the full article in the most recent issue of Carnegie Mellon Engineering.