比爾·蓋茨在哈佛所學的專業是什麼？

01-16

謝邀。這個問題問法不對。

1. 熟悉美國本科學制的會知道美國大學學制跟我國不同。我國特點是按系招生，招到後編班，某些不能適應的轉系。美國特點是按校招生，學校推薦study plan，最後按照你修的課來進入各個不同的degree track。所以除非想畢業，否則不會去操心degree track。

用google搜索bill gates havard "study plan"，可以看到搜得到的結果裡面基本都是照抄這一句：

Gates did not have a definite study plan while a student at Harvard[38] and spent a lot of time using the school"s computers.

蓋茨在操心畢業學位之前，在1974年夏天就去了Honeywell，後來創業去了。他根本都沒有到操心畢業的時候。

我個人的看法是，蓋茨既然大二上就解決了計算機方向一個頂級問題（見下）

In his sophomore year, Gates devised an algorithm for pancake sorting as a solution to one of a series of unsolved problems[35] presented in a combinatorics class by Harry Lewis, one of his professors. Gates"s solution held the record as the fastest version for over thirty years;[35][36] its successor is faster by only one percent.[35] His solution was later formalized in a published paper in collaboration with Harvard computer scientist Christos Papadimitriou.[37]

當時此人已經有高年級博士生的科研能力，本科學位對他來說根本是浪費時間。所以除非他真的不想走科研或創業這條路，否則他根本沒必要費神在拿什麼學位上。

2. 說蓋茨本科是法律專業是個廣泛的誤解。首先，美國本科是沒有法律學士學位的，自然也沒有本科法律專業。

Bachelor of Laws
The Bachelor of Laws (Latin: Legum Baccalaureus) or LL.B. is an undergraduate, or bachelor, degree in law (or a first professional degree in law, depending on jurisdiction) originating in England and offered in most common law jurisdictions.[1]
The United States is the only common law country that no longer offers the LL.B. While the LL.B. was conferred until 1971 at Yale University, since that time, all universities in the United States have awarded the professional doctorate J.D.,[2][3] which then became the generally standardized degree in most states for the necessary bar exam prior to practice of law.[4]

蓋茨1973年進哈佛，自然是不可能讀得到本科法律專業。

3. 說蓋茨讀法律的可能是誤解下面這一句：

He enrolled at Harvard College in the fall of 1973 intending to get a pre-law degree,[19] but did not have a definite study plan.[20]

這是wikipedia一個較老的版本。pre-law degree確實看著像某種法學學位，但是這個詞在wikipedia的解釋是這樣的：

Pre-law
In the United States, pre-law refers to any course of study taken by an undergraduate in preparation for study at a law school.
The American Bar Association requires law schools that it approves to require at least a bachelor"s degree for North American students for admission. But no specific degree or major is considered "pre-law";[1] unlike pre-med, an undergraduate student is not required to take a set of prerequisites in order to get into law school. Therefore, universities lack an official "pre-law" concentration.

就是說pre-law不是一種學位。只要有任何一種本科學位就可以申請法學博士項目，此時你的本科學位稱為pre-law。

4. 那麼為什麼說蓋茨想拿一個prelaw呢？93年Smithsonian對蓋茨的訪談裡面關於上學的問答是這樣的：

Interview with Bill GatesCollege Plans
DA: We are going to talk a little bit about your transition into Harvard before you got to the Altair. You mentioned that even though you worked in computing, that it wasn"t your goal when you went to college. Do you want to say what your goal was?
BG: That"s right. I finished up at TRW, went back, and graduated from Lakeside School. I picked, out of the schools I"d been accepted to, to go back to Harvard. They seemed to have a lot of different things. I knew that if I wanted to be a Lawyer or a Mathematician, Harvard had good courses for these things.

蓋茨在此處的意思是說，當時他還拿不定主意選擇什麼職業，而做個律師（像他父親）或者做個數學家（見上，蓋茨數學很好）是兩個明顯的選項。

或許他父親曾經表示過讓他學法律的意願，或許沒有，這次訪談里沒有說。我個人的猜測是沒有，因為從蓋茨的自述里看不出他父母對他的發展有任何限制，倒是鼓勵和支持居多。從wsj.com 的這次訪談中可以看出，從蓋茨12歲開始就是這樣了。

綜上，蓋茨在哈佛，最準確的描述是沒有專業，但是修了一堆顯然後來對他發展很有用的課。

比爾蓋茨進的是Harvard College，一開始對自己的數學天賦很自信想pure math的，不過後來的degree track是Applied Math。因為當時哈佛的計算機faculty是和應用數學在一起的，沒有獨立的計算機系，重要的證據就是他上過哈佛的Math55，然後因為被某個同學虐了，一怒之下放棄pure math，學了Applied Math。那個年代計算機科學和數學基本混在一起，他花了相當多的時間學計算機的課程，用今天的觀點來看，可能是應用數學和計算機科學的雙學位比較恰當吧。

順帶一提，當年Math55虐他的那個同學後來反倒成了華爾街上的一個成功的律師。。。