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> for women are generally outnumbered on Britain’s science-degree courses, especially among PhD That's really not true. Physics undergraduate in most universit

by joshvm 11y ago

> for women are generally outnumbered on Britain’s science-degree courses, especially among PhD That's really not true. Physics undergraduate in most universities is perhaps 1:10 male:female. Postgraduate (PhD) is pretty much half/half in my experience. My department is physics/space/climate and we have more girls than boys now I think. Perhaps the scene is worse in computer science, but I've been to a few machine vision conferences and women are pretty well represented. EDIT: That said, engineering undergraduate was atrocious at my university. I had some friends doing civil/mechanical and it was maybe 1:20. Comp sci was pretty good though, as was maths. Biology and chemistry (and biochemistry) always seem to attract girls too.

Kurtz79 11y ago
"That's really not true. ... in my experience." The plural of anecdote is not data. (Although neither the original article provide some...)
- joshvm 11y ago
  See my sibling comment for some stats. My beef is with the word 'especially'. If you look at the numbers for both UCL (my university) and Oxford (who via public scrutiny have to publish extensive statistics), you can see that postgraduate tends to have a more equal male/female ratio than undergraduate. Girls are still outnumbered, but saying 'especially among PhD' implies the situation worsens.
  - Kurtz79 11y ago
    Where is this shown ? In the Oxford data you link in the sibling comment, in the "Student numbers" PDF, the 2015 ratio for male/female Postgraduate research is 1.37, Postgraduate Taught is 1.18 and for Undergraduate 1.12, in agreement with the 'especially' in the article.
Scirra_Tom 11y ago
> That's really not true. Physics undergraduate in most universities is perhaps 1:10 male:female. It was talking about science-degree courses, not Physics specifically. You seem quite sure it's not true, do you have any sources?
- joshvm 11y ago
  I interpreted the statement as as slightly more hyperbolic than it actually is. What they say is true, across the board, but it's not as bad as it sounds. The problem is that 'especially' implies that the ratio gets worse as you get higher in academia and I think that's nonsense. My undergraduate degree was physics, but we spent time in other classes run by the maths and engineering departments. The stats for UCL are here: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/srs/statistics/tables/g/1415 https://www.ucl.ac.uk/srs/statistics/tables/g/1415 It's difficult to get more granular data. The graduate figures there are for masters and PhD combined. My department is space and climate and we certainly don't have 99 PhD students! I can't find stats for my undergraduate intake (Warwick '08), so you'll have to take my word for it. Things may have improved a lot since then. My girlfriend says that her physics course (St Andrews) was fairly even. Oxford is an interesting edge case because they seem to control for gender quite well. They accepted more girls than boys for undergrad in 2013 (over all sciences) at least. https://www.ox.ac.uk/gazette/statisticalinformation/#d.en.6207 https://www.ox.ac.uk/gazette/statisticalinformation/#d.en.62...
- superuser2 11y ago
  I think you mean 10:1.

by joshvm 11y ago

Kurtz79 11y ago

"That's really not true. ... in my experience." The plural of anecdote is not data. (Although neither the original article provide some...)

joshvm 11y ago
See my sibling comment for some stats. My beef is with the word 'especially'. If you look at the numbers for both UCL (my university) and Oxford (who via public scrutiny have to publish extensive statistics), you can see that postgraduate tends to have a more equal male/female ratio than undergraduate. Girls are still outnumbered, but saying 'especially among PhD' implies the situation worsens.
- Kurtz79 11y ago
  Where is this shown ? In the Oxford data you link in the sibling comment, in the "Student numbers" PDF, the 2015 ratio for male/female Postgraduate research is 1.37, Postgraduate Taught is 1.18 and for Undergraduate 1.12, in agreement with the 'especially' in the article.

Scirra_Tom 11y ago

> That's really not true. Physics undergraduate in most universities is perhaps 1:10 male:female. It was talking about science-degree courses, not Physics specifically. You seem quite sure it's not true, do you have any sources?

joshvm 11y ago
I interpreted the statement as as slightly more hyperbolic than it actually is. What they say is true, across the board, but it's not as bad as it sounds. The problem is that 'especially' implies that the ratio gets worse as you get higher in academia and I think that's nonsense. My undergraduate degree was physics, but we spent time in other classes run by the maths and engineering departments. The stats for UCL are here: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/srs/statistics/tables/g/1415 https://www.ucl.ac.uk/srs/statistics/tables/g/1415 It's difficult to get more granular data. The graduate figures there are for masters and PhD combined. My department is space and climate and we certainly don't have 99 PhD students! I can't find stats for my undergraduate intake (Warwick '08), so you'll have to take my word for it. Things may have improved a lot since then. My girlfriend says that her physics course (St Andrews) was fairly even. Oxford is an interesting edge case because they seem to control for gender quite well. They accepted more girls than boys for undergrad in 2013 (over all sciences) at least. https://www.ox.ac.uk/gazette/statisticalinformation/#d.en.6207 https://www.ox.ac.uk/gazette/statisticalinformation/#d.en.62...
superuser2 11y ago
I think you mean 10:1.