Actually from my personal observation a lot of the women who dropped out of engineering degrees, especially computer science, could do the math. What they couldn’t do was see a way to have a career in the field and a family. In comp sci if you let your resume get five years out of date, that’s it, you’re done. Taking time off for a kid can be career killing. Or even downgrading to fewer hours is tough. This is an industry where 60 hour weeks are not uncommon. It’s hard to do that and be a mom and contrary to what feminists say, most twenty something college educated women do want kids.
It’s hard to look at all the hard work you’re doing and say “I guess this is going down the toilet in five years”. It’s discouraging.
I sure as heck don't work 60 hours weeks. Maybe twice a year. I do muse over things quite a bit though... perhaps that is billable ;-)
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.’
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....