6 ms·

Melinda Gates says: "Some of the best programs, UW, Stanford, Berkeley — or what [president] Maria Klawe is doing at Harvey Mudd — are finally looking at that v

Melinda Gates says: "Some of the best programs, UW, Stanford, Berkeley — or what [president] Maria Klawe is doing at Harvey Mudd — are finally looking at that very first CS course. If it’s completely geared towards an 18-year-old white male, and they are not thinking about role models for women or problem sets they get for women, how do we keep [women] in the course?" I can really see myself in this -- as a teenager I wrote a lot of code recreationally, writing scripts to automate playing text-based computer games ("go north. a monster attacks!") and writing my own games. It was the first CS classes that drove me away from it, and led me to think: - CS isn't for people like me - CS problems aren't interesting - CS doesn't do anything to make the world a better place. It took me many years to come back around to the coding career I'm in today. I really believe that small changes to the classes could've prevented me from developing those misconceptions and being driven away from it.

exclusiv 10y ago
I came from the same camp, but what's great is you don't have to be in CS to have a great tech career these days. I was in Computer Engineering, then a more applied Engineering major and finally switched to Sales my last year and that combination was perfect for me.
tw04 10y ago
Can you expand? Because I really, really don't understand. How do you "gear" a programming course towards a gender? I can't recall a single example in any CS course I ever had that was anything more than writing code. I honestly can't even fathom how you would make that gender or race biased. It's mathematics and programming.
- hkmurakami 10y ago
  Currently, boys are more culturally inclined to have had previous exposure to technology and programming than girls. This leads to an uneven starting point when they arrive in college. Now this is fine in a vacuum, but when you put students with different experiences into one room, the ones with prior experience will naturally tend to do better. This relative lack of experience is often misinterpreted as a relative lack of ability or aptitude by the students with less experience, even if their potential is equal if not better than their more experienced peers. Since gender currently correlates with experience, one way to help balance things gender wise is to even the field wrt experience. This is something Harvey Mudd has done well. (Granted, their stats will be inflated since Harvey Mudd is an excellent STEM school that attracts some of the most technology inclined female students in the country to apply).
  - tw04 10y ago
    >Currently, boys are more culturally inclined to have had previous exposure to technology and programming than girls. I guess I would ask for your basis for this comment. Unless I'm completely off-base on current teenage culture, kids who sit at their computer to program all day are pretty much universally shunned in high school whether a girl or boy. At least at my high school, the advanced math classes were pretty much 50/50 split between boys and girls and I'd argue passing AP calc in high school is 90% of the battle. If you can tackle that the basics of programming are nothing. >This relative lack of experience is often misinterpreted as a relative lack of ability or aptitude by the students with less experience, even if their potential is equal if not better than their more experienced peers. I guess I don't get where you're going with this. The teachers will expect you to complete homework and tests. If you're saying professors are somehow making girls feel bad if they go in and ask for help on problems, you should be reporting that to the university. I appreciate the opinion but it feels like a huge reach. CS101 is literally as basic as it gets. If you've passed advanced mathematics and are lost in basic programming, CS probably isn't the best profession. I REALLY am struggling to believe the next Diane Greene missed the boat because they couldn't make it through intro to programming. I cannot for the life of me grasp this insistence that we have equal representation across all professions from both genders. It turns out males and females literally have difference chemical make-ups and gravitate towards different professions naturally. If there are women truly being discriminated against, as insinuated above, by something like a professor not giving them the help they need - let's absolutely address it. Fire the professor, sanction the school, throw the book at them. If the issue is "there's way more boys than girls applying for X degrees" - who cares? If they aren't being actively discriminated against, stop trying to force the issue. Let people pursue the professions they enjoy and stop being so caught up in the breakdown of what they naturally drift towards.
    - projektir 10y ago
      You appear to have already made up your mind about the issue. It's going to be rather hard for you to see why there may be a problem when it depends on some assumptions you've already rejected: > If you've passed advanced mathematics and are lost in basic programming, CS probably isn't the best profession. I think you're vastly underestimating the benefit of preparation, especially an advanced form of thereof. CS may also require more preparation than other fields do due to its inherent unintuitiveness. The gap between those who dabbled enough to get the basics and those who have never seen it before is rather large. CS 101 is not basic. Even a high school CS class is not basic. Especially at some places. You're lacking perspective here. > I cannot for the life of me grasp this insistence that we have equal representation across all professions from both genders. It turns out males and females literally have difference chemical make-ups and gravitate towards different professions naturally. Many people are not ready to simply accept the latter conclusion because of recent history. Most of those people are similar to the same people who have found that kind of conclusion to be false previously.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- bonniemuffin 10y ago
  Here's just one example of how little moments in class can impact student's ideas of whether CS is interesting and whether they "belong" in it. It's easy for CS teachers to get boys excited by introducing a new topic with something like "these algorithms are important in VIDEO GAMES!" Boys are vastly more likely to play video games than girls, so this example will likely be much more motivating to boys than girls. Girls are often socialized to highly value a career that helps other people. An example like "these algorithms are important for helping doctors determine which patients have cancer" may be more inspiring to them.
  - tdkl 10y ago
    So you're claiming men are more childish? As parent said, all it matters is writing code and if women aren't interested in that as much men typically aren't in professions usually filled by women, that's their choice.
    - bonniemuffin 10y ago
      Nope. Examples involving whatever girls do for fun these days would also be fine. I'm just not hip to what teen girls are doing for fun. "This is how you make snapchat"?
  - VeejayRampay 10y ago
    I think the male to female ratio in gaming at large is pretty much 1:1 now. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_and_video_games#Demographics_of_female_players https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_and_video_games#Demograp...
    - Senji 10y ago
      Only if you conflate all genres AND age brackets together.
    - bonniemuffin 10y ago
      Right there in your link: "While 48% of women in the United States report having played a video game, only 6% identify as gamers, compared to 15% of men who identify as gamers. This rises to 9% among women aged 18–29, compared to 33% of men in that age group." They might play a game now and then, but women are less likely to identify themselves as "gamers" or to think of gaming as a part of their identity. When we think about creating an inclusive environment where students can see themselves in the career, this is the sort of statistic to consider.
- CN7R 10y ago
  Whenever the subject of women in code comes up, I always recommend listening to this podcast: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/17/356944145/episode-576-when-women-stopped-coding http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/17/356944145/episo... But in my opinion, schools should not gear programming courses to favor a certain gender; a better response would be to create a culture that is supportive / inclusive towards everyone entering computer science and to have resources available when people need help.
koder2016 10y ago
Asians seem to be doing fine, though? Oh, I forgot, the [hated_group_name] is redefined until it includes all people who achieve academically. Also her sexist remark is really not necessary :(. http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/Melanie_Upfoot http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/Melanie_Upfoot "Melanie took over as the math teacher for the girls, however she did not teach math, she used the subject for female empowerment, talking about "how numbers make you feel," "what does a plus sign smell like" and "is the number seven odd, or just different" while disapproving of men treating math like a problem that needs to be solved, none of these being actual math subjects as math 'is' about solving problems."

exclusiv 10y ago

I came from the same camp, but what's great is you don't have to be in CS to have a great tech career these days. I was in Computer Engineering, then a more applied Engineering major and finally switched to Sales my last year and that combination was perfect for me.

tw04 10y ago

Can you expand? Because I really, really don't understand. How do you "gear" a programming course towards a gender? I can't recall a single example in any CS course I ever had that was anything more than writing code. I honestly can't even fathom how you would make that gender or race biased. It's mathematics and programming.

hkmurakami 10y ago
Currently, boys are more culturally inclined to have had previous exposure to technology and programming than girls. This leads to an uneven starting point when they arrive in college. Now this is fine in a vacuum, but when you put students with different experiences into one room, the ones with prior experience will naturally tend to do better. This relative lack of experience is often misinterpreted as a relative lack of ability or aptitude by the students with less experience, even if their potential is equal if not better than their more experienced peers. Since gender currently correlates with experience, one way to help balance things gender wise is to even the field wrt experience. This is something Harvey Mudd has done well. (Granted, their stats will be inflated since Harvey Mudd is an excellent STEM school that attracts some of the most technology inclined female students in the country to apply).
- tw04 10y ago
  >Currently, boys are more culturally inclined to have had previous exposure to technology and programming than girls. I guess I would ask for your basis for this comment. Unless I'm completely off-base on current teenage culture, kids who sit at their computer to program all day are pretty much universally shunned in high school whether a girl or boy. At least at my high school, the advanced math classes were pretty much 50/50 split between boys and girls and I'd argue passing AP calc in high school is 90% of the battle. If you can tackle that the basics of programming are nothing. >This relative lack of experience is often misinterpreted as a relative lack of ability or aptitude by the students with less experience, even if their potential is equal if not better than their more experienced peers. I guess I don't get where you're going with this. The teachers will expect you to complete homework and tests. If you're saying professors are somehow making girls feel bad if they go in and ask for help on problems, you should be reporting that to the university. I appreciate the opinion but it feels like a huge reach. CS101 is literally as basic as it gets. If you've passed advanced mathematics and are lost in basic programming, CS probably isn't the best profession. I REALLY am struggling to believe the next Diane Greene missed the boat because they couldn't make it through intro to programming. I cannot for the life of me grasp this insistence that we have equal representation across all professions from both genders. It turns out males and females literally have difference chemical make-ups and gravitate towards different professions naturally. If there are women truly being discriminated against, as insinuated above, by something like a professor not giving them the help they need - let's absolutely address it. Fire the professor, sanction the school, throw the book at them. If the issue is "there's way more boys than girls applying for X degrees" - who cares? If they aren't being actively discriminated against, stop trying to force the issue. Let people pursue the professions they enjoy and stop being so caught up in the breakdown of what they naturally drift towards.
  - projektir 10y ago
    You appear to have already made up your mind about the issue. It's going to be rather hard for you to see why there may be a problem when it depends on some assumptions you've already rejected: > If you've passed advanced mathematics and are lost in basic programming, CS probably isn't the best profession. I think you're vastly underestimating the benefit of preparation, especially an advanced form of thereof. CS may also require more preparation than other fields do due to its inherent unintuitiveness. The gap between those who dabbled enough to get the basics and those who have never seen it before is rather large. CS 101 is not basic. Even a high school CS class is not basic. Especially at some places. You're lacking perspective here. > I cannot for the life of me grasp this insistence that we have equal representation across all professions from both genders. It turns out males and females literally have difference chemical make-ups and gravitate towards different professions naturally. Many people are not ready to simply accept the latter conclusion because of recent history. Most of those people are similar to the same people who have found that kind of conclusion to be false previously.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
bonniemuffin 10y ago
Here's just one example of how little moments in class can impact student's ideas of whether CS is interesting and whether they "belong" in it. It's easy for CS teachers to get boys excited by introducing a new topic with something like "these algorithms are important in VIDEO GAMES!" Boys are vastly more likely to play video games than girls, so this example will likely be much more motivating to boys than girls. Girls are often socialized to highly value a career that helps other people. An example like "these algorithms are important for helping doctors determine which patients have cancer" may be more inspiring to them.
- tdkl 10y ago
  So you're claiming men are more childish? As parent said, all it matters is writing code and if women aren't interested in that as much men typically aren't in professions usually filled by women, that's their choice.
  - bonniemuffin 10y ago
    Nope. Examples involving whatever girls do for fun these days would also be fine. I'm just not hip to what teen girls are doing for fun. "This is how you make snapchat"?
- VeejayRampay 10y ago
  I think the male to female ratio in gaming at large is pretty much 1:1 now. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_and_video_games#Demographics_of_female_players https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_and_video_games#Demograp...
  - Senji 10y ago
    Only if you conflate all genres AND age brackets together.
  - bonniemuffin 10y ago
    Right there in your link: "While 48% of women in the United States report having played a video game, only 6% identify as gamers, compared to 15% of men who identify as gamers. This rises to 9% among women aged 18–29, compared to 33% of men in that age group." They might play a game now and then, but women are less likely to identify themselves as "gamers" or to think of gaming as a part of their identity. When we think about creating an inclusive environment where students can see themselves in the career, this is the sort of statistic to consider.
CN7R 10y ago
Whenever the subject of women in code comes up, I always recommend listening to this podcast: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/17/356944145/episode-576-when-women-stopped-coding http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/17/356944145/episo... But in my opinion, schools should not gear programming courses to favor a certain gender; a better response would be to create a culture that is supportive / inclusive towards everyone entering computer science and to have resources available when people need help.

koder2016 10y ago

Asians seem to be doing fine, though? Oh, I forgot, the [hated_group_name] is redefined until it includes all people who achieve academically. Also her sexist remark is really not necessary :(. http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/Melanie_Upfoot http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/Melanie_Upfoot "Melanie took over as the math teacher for the girls, however she did not teach math, she used the subject for female empowerment, talking about "how numbers make you feel," "what does a plus sign smell like" and "is the number seven odd, or just different" while disapproving of men treating math like a problem that needs to be solved, none of these being actual math subjects as math 'is' about solving problems."