Posted on 04/03/2012 5:37:44 AM PDT by reaganaut1
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[Computer science] students are overwhelmingly male. In 2010, just 18.2 percent of undergraduates in the field were women, according to the National Center for Education Statistics — in spite of gains in chemistry, biomechanical engineering and other so-called STEM fields (the acronym stands for science, technology, engineering and mathematics).
“It must be the unique area of science and technology where women have made negative progress,” said Nicholas Pippenger, a mathematics professor at Harvey Mudd, who is married to Dr. Klawe.
Dr. Klawe and others say the underrepresentation of women in the field is detrimental in a larger sense. Computer science, they say, is as vital to propelling society forward in the digital era as mechanical engineering was in the industrial age.
“If we’re not getting more women to be part of that, it’s just nuts,” Dr. Klawe said. At Mudd, she continued, “we’re graduating 20 female computer science majors a year, and every one of them is a gem.” In 2005, the year before Dr. Klawe arrived, a group of faculty members embarked on a full makeover of the introductory computer science course, a requirement at Mudd.
Known as CS 5, the course focused on hard-core programming, appealing to a particular kind of student — young men, already seasoned programmers, who dominated the class. This only reinforced the women’s sense that computer science was for geeky know-it-alls.
“Most of the female students were unwilling to go on in computer science because of the stereotypes they had grown up with,” said Zachary Dodds, a computer scientist at Mudd. “We realized we were helping perpetuate that by teaching such a standard course.”
To reduce the intimidation factor, the course was divided into two sections — “gold,” for those with no prior experience, and “black” for everyone else.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
To reduce the intimidation factor, the course was divided into two sections — “gold,” for those with no prior experience, and “black” for everyone else. Java, a notoriously opaque programming language, was replaced by a more accessible language called Python. And the focus of the course changed to computational approaches to solving problems across science.
“We realized that we needed to show students computer science is not all about programming,” said Ran Libeskind-Hadas, chairman of the department. “It has intellectual depth and connections to other disciplines.”
With regard to Python vs. Java: Python is a simpler language to get started in - it needs less boilerplate, and requires less rigor with regard to declaring variables and types. But from a conceptual point-of-view, Python supports far more sophisticated programming concepts - list comprehensions, coroutines, lambda expressions, etc., than does Java.
And as to those connections to other disciplines - they are various disciplines of mathematics - computation theory, discrete math, logic, etc. In other words, the other disciplines require more discipline, and more intellectual rigor, than does Comp Sci.
“That way they stop having kids, and Western Society withers on the vine.”
Bull. Successful conservative women have kids. That’s just obnoxious.
That was Harry Mudd, and I always do a double-take on that school's name, too.
I got my CS degree in 1980, and including the grad students, we numbered 17 or 18.
There may have been 2 women in the graduate class, and 5 in the undergrad class. All were competent, and one even got a double major in Math.
Phenomenal woman! And an incredible speaker also. I’ve heard her speak a couple times.
The Navy was so fond of her they brought her back from retirement twice and named a ship after her.
Somewhere, in my many boxes of things, I still have one of her “nanoseconds”
My own experience with women in the computer Sci field has been very good. Most of them were superior programmers and had good critical reasoning at problem analysis.
On the other hand in College I would say that my class in 1982 started out around 50% women and ended up around 10% by graduation. I would say that the number one reason for that decline was the number of hours required to do the required work and quite frankly Computer Lab time was difficult to get at times and that required a very flexible schedule including a few all-nighters.
Social time suffered or was non-existant earning CS majors the title of geeks.
She is truly “Amazing Grace” and she didn;t need no damned social justice to get where she got, she proves that if you want something you have to pursue it and while doing so you make the obstacles a badge of honor rather than an excuse.
I don’t work 60 hour weeks either, never have, but in college when you’re looking at jobs... and all the guys want to go work for Google or Microsoft or Blizzard or some other big infotech or gaming company, and that’s the kind of pace they set there, it can be daunting.
There are women in CS and I don’t think we need more affirmative action, but there are reasons beside “girls are dumb” why a woman wouldn’t necessarily take that path.
“FWIW, in 1987 my CS-101 class at SUNY Stony Brook had hundreds of students, and just a handful were female. This isn’t anything new.”
My Assembler language programming course in 1990 started with 58 students. 17 men and 0 women took the final exam.
I get math, I get computer programming, I get software & hardware, for the most part, I get chemistry & biology. As I am getting older, I enjoy writing more, and I can help write work SOPs, etc. I don’t get physics. It was truly a struggle.
“Bull. Successful conservative women have kids. That’s just obnoxious.”
Perhaps you haven’t seen the birthrates in countries where women are ‘liberated’ compared to the birthrates in countries where women are not ‘liberated’. And perhaps you haven’t compared either of those rates to the required 2.1 children per women necessary to maintain population.
Stop being brainwashed by the radical feminists and open your mind a bit, please.
You are spot on. While the IT world is considered a 9-5 white collar world, it is anything but. While one might be in the office from 9-5, it is not uncommon to work until midnight or later most of the time. Miss a couple of deadlines and you probably won’t have to worry about meeting any others.
If a young woman doesn’t want to get married or have a family or has few female friends, then IT is probably right up their alley. I am guessing that after a couple of career days running around in an IT shop most young ladies go, ‘Whoa, I want to do this? Let me check out that EE thingy again.’
Uh, Bobber, you missed some of the big words. Like “conservative”.
What the hell is your problem?
Just responding to your post, Bob. And, you’re right, I probably shouldn’t have responded in kind.
Just because you don’t like an INDISPUTABLE statical correlation doesn’t mean have to get in a wad. This stuff can be discussed with ‘civility’, if you try.
You might try taking your own advice. Just a suggestion.
“Bull. Successful conservative women have kids. That’s just obnoxious.”
The use of the terms “Bull” and “Obnoxious” after a posting that NO ONE else had a problem with. Definition of getting in a wad, after receiving an unpleasant fact.
Don’t forget Adm. Grace Hopper the developer of the compiler and of COBOL.
I disagree. Software maintenance is hard work and unglamorous but they can pay mucho bucks. I do C & C++ maintenance work and make over 150k/yr doing it. There even COBOL jobs out there, still....
I do it for the money, I really don't like it. To me a really complex software problem is like beating your head against a wall once you've corrected the problem, stopped beating your brains out, it feels good. I live for that 30 seconds of satisfaction. The feeling doesn't last too long but whatever...
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