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Here's the thing. While there are absolutely some pervasive, sneakily awful female-specific problems in computer science, this is emphatically not one of them.

Here's the thing. While there are absolutely some pervasive, sneakily awful female-specific problems in computer science, this is emphatically not one of them. The experience described in this article has exactly nothing to do with being a woman. Computer science is an extremely difficult subject, and everyone sucks really hard at it when they're getting started (or very shortly thereafter). That experience is universal to computer scientists. I will absolutely guarantee you that there were plenty of men in that class who were going through the exact same thing at some point in their academic career, if not right then. The Problem in computer science education is a combination of the spotlight problem (once you know something, especially something abstract, it's hard to imagine what it's like to not know it) and the No True Scotsman problem (if you ever struggle with anything in computer science then you'll never be a Real computer scientist). In situations like this, where a large percentage of the population is at a fragile stage of development, we need to be very clear that we're addressing the actual core problem. Namely, that everyone feels that they're the dumb one in a room full of brilliant effortlessly successful people, and that if the coursework is not easy and a little boring you should quit because it only gets worse from here. This needs to be a large chunk of lecture time early in the semester. You are going to hit The Wall. Everyone does, there's no shame in it. When (not if) you do, ask for help. Say "I don't know". This is an important life skill, and a large part of being a functioning adult.

brational 11y ago
> Namely, that everyone feels that they're the dumb one in a room full of brilliant effortlessly successful people, and that if the coursework is not easy and a little boring you should quit because it only gets worse from here. So I self-learned CS, my degrees were in applied math, and it was similar in the math world. Although more like: "everyone feels that they're the dumb one in a room full of other dumb ones... " But where I studied, we did receive that sort of lecture early on. That "a wall" as you've described it is normal, get used to it. It's served me well, being comfortable with "not knowing" something. You could argue that it's something every student of ANY subject should be told but I guess many subjects are easy enough that simply working at X% effort is enough to never get stumped.

brational 11y ago

> Namely, that everyone feels that they're the dumb one in a room full of brilliant effortlessly successful people, and that if the coursework is not easy and a little boring you should quit because it only gets worse from here. So I self-learned CS, my degrees were in applied math, and it was similar in the math world. Although more like: "everyone feels that they're the dumb one in a room full of other dumb ones... " But where I studied, we did receive that sort of lecture early on. That "a wall" as you've described it is normal, get used to it. It's served me well, being comfortable with "not knowing" something. You could argue that it's something every student of ANY subject should be told but I guess many subjects are easy enough that simply working at X% effort is enough to never get stumped.