Winn said that her peers who are applying to the technology sector usually target Facebook, Google, and Microsoft. She would like to ask Zuckerberg why these companies are so popular—and why they in turn recruit so heavily at Harvard.

"Rumor has it that software engineers at Facebook have more say over what features they work on and the overall product direction," she said.

Students are not the only ones eagerly anticipating Zuckerberg’s visit. His former professors are also excited for the return of a star pupil.

“I think students will become energized and inspired by the fact that computer science is really a skill—a field of study—that enables people to do amazing things,” said computer science senior lecturer Henry H. Leitner.

“A guy like Bill Gates, or a guy like Mark Zuckerberg, were a bit of anomaly,” Leitner said. Today, Leitner says, in the shadow of Gates and Zuckerberg, creating a startup is a more viable option for undergraduates.

Facebook has been recruiting at Harvard since 2008, according to Mount.

—Reina A.E. Gattuso contributed reporting for this story.

—Staff writer Radhika Jain can be reached at radhikajain@college.harvard.edu.

This article has been revised to reflect the following corrections:

CORRECTION: November 7, 2011

Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this article misquoted Julia C. Winn ’12.