Faculty, alumni and students of the interdisciplinary Symbolic Systems program will be gathering to celebrate its 25th anniversary with a free symposium on Friday and by-invitation-only discussions on Saturday that highlight the program’s history, impact on the world and future.
Symbolic Systems was created in 1986 by faculty members, many of whom were associated with the Center for the Study of Language and Information. Since then, the program has graduated some 700 students with impressive resumes.
“It attracted students who were technically inclined but had humanistic interests as well—who were intellectually curious and turned on by being part of the culture of Silicon Valley,” reflects TOM WASOW, professor of linguistics and the Clarence Irving Lewis Professor of Philosophy. He led the establishment of Symbolic Systems and directed the program on and off for 12 years. “The program became a popular major very quickly and has succeeded beyond my wildest dreams.”
Among the Sym Sys alumni are:
- MATT FLANNERY, co-founder and CEO of Kiva, who graduated in 2001 with a BS in SymSys and MA in philosophy. Founded in 2004, Kiva allows people to invest in low-income entrepreneurs worldwide.
- SCOTT FORSTALL, BS ’91 in Sym Sys and MS ’92 in computer science. Forstall is senior vice president of iPhone, iPad and iPod Software at Apple.
- REID HOFFMAN, who graduated in 1989 and co-founded LinkedIn. Hoffman is a partner at Greylock and an early investor in such companies as Facebook. He wrote “The Start-Up of You.”
- MIKE KRIEGER, who earned BS and MS degrees in Sym Sys in 2008 and 2009, respectively. Krieger is the cofounder of Instagram, which was recently purchased by Facebook.
- YUL KWON, who graduated in 1997 and has become a television host of programs such as “America Revealed.”
- MARISSA MAYER, BS ’97 in Sym Sys and MS ’99 in computer science. Mayer is Google’s vice president of local, maps and location services and was one of the company’s first 20 employees.
- JAMES RUCKER, who graduated in 1991 and served as director of grassroots mobilization for MoveOn.org before cofounding ColorOfChange.org, an online advocacy community of nearly 1 million people focused on elevating the political voice of Black Americans.
- SRINIJA SRINIVASAN, who graduated in 1993 and was one of Yahoo! Inc.’s first five employees. She served as vice president and editor in chief of the company until 2010.
Symbolic Systems combines courses in computer science, linguistics, philosophy and psychology. Its goal is to prepare students to participate in interdisciplinary research into questions about language, information and intelligence—both human and machine. The curriculum combines traditional humanistic approaches to these questions with a familiarity with science and the technology of computation.
