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That’s a very interesting hypothesis. It needs a little expansion to address the reported “suddenly in 1984” aspect. I wonder if, around that time, there was a
by quirkot 9y ago
That’s a very interesting hypothesis. It needs a little expansion to address the reported “suddenly in 1984” aspect. I wonder if, around that time, there was a change in many colleges that required more advanced math (or some other topic) where HS teacher biases are stronger (or more impactful). Very neat read.
- jacknews 9y ago1984 was about when the entire home-computer game industry collapsed, and presumably, many people's dreams of riches.
- rpiguy 9y agoThat may have been a factor but it don't think it fully explains the sudden "snap" downward to levels lower than 20 years before. Kudos though for actually addressing the question of what caused the sudden change, rather than just focusing on the general climate of 1984 for nerds.
- mikestew 9y agoAn interesting thought, however I would argue that the vast majority of programming jobs at the time were not with game companies but at a bank or insurance company maintaining some LOB app.
- jacknews 9y agoIndeed but writing a game was something you could do in school. I know I was inspired by news reports of teenagers getting rich from games they'd written.
- lookasun 9y agoI've heard that in the 80s, that at the same time many more people started wanting to study comp sci (due to the home computer boom) many faculty were also leaving for industry. This led to a shortage of teaching professors. Due to this, many schools started only accepting the top tier students for their programs. If HS teacher biases were hurting women's performance in mathematics and such, this would be reflected in their lower participation in college comp sci programs