Max Nash/PA Wire URN:13862234 (Press Association via AP Images)

Will.i.am, Black Eyed Peas front man and Intel’s director of creative innovation, has announced that he’ll be heading back to class this September. “Fascinated” by quantum physics, he told Canada’s CTV News that he’ll be studying computer science this fall.

“If you live in a ghetto and really want not to just change your life and your family’s life but change your ghetto’s life, make your ghetto a good neighbourhood, learn science, try to be like Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs,” he said.

“ Music is great, athletics is great, but the guys in Silicon valley and the dudes that make Twitter and Facebook, they’re changing the world,” he added.

Just yesterday, we wrote about the need for African Americans in STEM careers, which are areas seeking trained and enthusiastic professionals now and in the foreseeable future. Of course, Will.i.am already has a thriving career, but hopefully he’ll serve as an example to others.

And perhaps he has a better future in computer science than he does in music. Yikes. Here’s Will.i.am rapping about technology for The Wall Street Journal. When a reporter looks at you like this, you know you don’t have a hit on your hands. Even better, he talks about what’s hot in the tech world. That’s worth listening to.

Image via UMich.edu

Kyla McMullen isn’t merely graduating from the University at Michigan. She is actually the first African-American woman Ph.D. graduate in computer science at the university.

But McMullen isn’t fully celebrating. According to McMullen, the experience is “bittersweet” because of the low number of  women and minorities pursuing advanced degrees in computer science. In fact, out of the more than 1,400 Americans who received Ph.D.s in computer science from 2010 to 2011, less than a quarter were female, and a mere 1.2 percent – 16 people – were African-American, according to the latest Computing Research Association Taulbee Survey.

Intrigued by computer science as a young girl, McMullen was selected to participate in The University of Maryland, Baltimore County´s (UMBC) Meyerhoff Scholarship Program. After that, she thrived at The University of Michigan, where she was president of The Society of Minority Engineers and Scientists and the vice president of the Movement of Underrepresented Sisters in Engineering and Science.

McMullen should have many doors open for her. As we reported recently STEM  majors are greatly deserved on the job market, And there are few women in these fields. And according to a 2012 report by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, “the demand will far outstrip the supply for these coveted graduates;” reports The Washington Post.

No, not every young sister has aspirations to be a propped-up doll. At a time when our culture seems wrapped up in the notion of women using sex and seduction to “win,” the Spelman College Spelbots, the first all female African-American robotics team, are using their smarts and making a global impact.

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