In its report "Cybercities 2008," the AeA said that Seattle led the nation in net new technology jobs in 2006, adding 7,800 people to the local tech workforce. Indeed, the Washington offices of Microsoft, Amazon.com, Adobe Systems, Google and Intel say a lot about the opportunities for graduates of the University of Washington.

Says Jeff Dean, a UW graduate who is now a software engineer at Google, "Although I was focusing on compilers and programming languages for my Ph.D. research, I took classes and attended seminars in a bunch of other areas, including computer architecture, operating system design, distributed systems, algorithms and complexity theory, computer graphics and software engineering. This breadth is incredibly valuable at a company like Google, where many projects involve working across many disciplines."

At a Glance

Location: Seattle
www.cs.washington.edu
Department: Computer Science & Engineering
Program: Computer science & engineering
Key Administrator: Hank Levy, chairman
In-state tuition: $3,139
Out-of-state tuition: $7,155

"Our students do internships and collaborative research at Intel Research Seattle," says Ed Lazowska, a computer science professor at the university. "Ditto for Microsoft Research, and Google Seattle and Adobe Seattle. This extensive industry research involvement takes place throughout their graduate careers. Our faculty are involved with these companies, too—so the engagement is an integral part of the students' life, not something on the side."