
University of Washington and Chinese University Form Technology Institute - luu
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/19/business/university-of-washington-and-chinese-university-unite-to-form-technology-institute.html
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stephengillie
UW Seattle has long been the target of a donation war between Bill Gates, Paul
Allen, Intel, and others. Their CSE department is one of the richest on the
campus. But space on the campus is at a very high premium. I wonder if they
have options to expand to a different location.

This development will be located somewhat near the newly-accredited Bellevue
College, which only recently gained 4-year degree approval. Perhaps BC will
spin up their technology undergrad degree soon, then they might be able to
feed undergrads into this new institute as well.

The vast majority of programmers, developers, architects, and IT that I've
worked with in this area have degrees in other areas: business, sociology,
English, sports therapy. It's become a tradition to major in an interesting
subject during college, then leave that career behind for a better-paying job.
And joining these self-taught software engineers are the ones who never
attended college.

I wonder how this will impact the immigration and visa situation - I met some
people in college who were not allowed to stay after graduation. The article
implies that graduates will remain local and fill the glut of tech workers,
but it sounds almost like Tsinghua University will be sending students there
as well. So maybe it will be a program where Chinese students learn at this
joint university, and then return to China?

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codeonfire
This place is only going to hand out Masters degrees in 'technology
innovation.' It's goal is to be a diploma mill for people Microsoft wants to
bring over from China because there is a higher H1B cap for people with
masters degrees. Obviously, people trying to get a real graduate degree will
go to a top 100 school where actual research is going on.

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aswin8728
UW is #6 in the nation in CS (US News & World), #48 in national universities
(US News & World) and #26 in global rankings (Times Higher Education
Rankings)...

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codeonfire
This school is not UW though, is it. Who, specifically, is going to teach at
this new institute since UW profs are already at capacity and Tsinghua profs
are in China. They certainly are not funding any new research here. How can
you have a graduate institute in technology with no research, pHds, or even
undergrads? What are the diploma's going to say? GIX, UW, Tsinghua, Microsoft?

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stephengillie
You could make this argument for any nascent learning institution. Obviously,
they're going to do what anyone does when starting a school: pull respected
faculty from other schools, start new research programs and import research-
in-progress if possible, hire PHDs and other lecturers, and eventually develop
an undergraduate program.

And I'd guess that since the Global Innovation Exchange will be the name of
the school, that's what the diplomas will say too.

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mratzloff
It's an H-1B funnel from China. Seattle is competing to take the reins as the
#1 startup center (along with many other cities), but they need engineers to
do it.

