( CNN ) -- Mark Zuckerberg went back to Harvard on Monday on a recruiting trip , his first visit since he dropped out of the prestigious university to found social-media giant Facebook . Clad in his trademark hoodie and T-shirt , Zuckerberg told reporters , `` This is a great time to come . '' `` There 's a lot of really smart people here , and a lot of them are making decisions on where they are going to work when they graduate in the next couple of weeks , '' he said . The university posted a slickly edited video on YouTube of Zuckerberg 's outdoor remarks . Zuckerberg quit Harvard and moved to California to found Facebook in 2004 . The university 's student newspaper , The Harvard Crimson , says he was back on campus for the first time since he left to recruit students for internships at Facebook . Facebook is `` just getting started , '' Zuckerberg said , according to The Crimson . `` The original goals for the company are to make it so that the whole world can be more open and connected . And you know the last five years have really just been about helping people get signed up and stay connected with their friends , '' he said , The Crimson reported . `` But I think the next five or 10 years are going to be about all of these different products and industries that can be rethought . '' Students , not surprisingly , sounded thrilled about the visit . `` If you 've seen the movie 'Social Network , ' you know that when Zuckerberg attended a talk by Bill Gates it was a pivotal moment , '' Harvard senior Michael Wong told The Boston Globe . `` This could be another iteration of that . The next Mark Zuckerberg could be in the audience . '' Harvard students applied for the Facebook internships within seconds of their being posted online , a university official told the Crimson . Harvard , for its part , was happy to welcome back the billionaire dropout . `` We 're very happy to have him here . We 've rolled out the red carpet , '' Tania deLuzuriaga , a spokeswoman for the university , said before Zuckerberg 's arrival . `` The excitement on campus is palpable . There is a big waiting list of students who want to go to this event and ca n't get in . It 's the talk of campus today . '' The meeting serves Facebook 's purpose of looking for new engineers . The site , which is headquartered in Palo Alto , California , already has more than 2,000 employees . Zuckerberg `` is eager to connect with computer science and engineering students from some of the best schools in the world , and may well be tomorrow 's Facebook innovators , '' Facebook 's Andrew Noyes told the Crimson in an e-mail before the visit . Facebook has grown from a dorm-room project to an international sensation , with more than 800 million people using the social-networking site . Zuckerberg 's fame has risen in tandem with the site 's success . Last year , the Oscar-winning movie `` The Social Network '' profiled the somewhat socially awkward king of social media . At a Facebook product release in September , `` Saturday Night Live 's '' Andy Samberg did impressions of Facebook 's founder on stage .
Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard University in 2004 . The Facebook CEO visited the campus on Monday . He returns to recruit engineering students for internships . It is his first official visit since 2004 , The Harvard Crimson says .