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> Her father was a preacher, prison chaplain and at one stage a high school teacher. Ms Fowler never graduated from high school, instead working as a babysitter

> Her father was a preacher, prison chaplain and at one stage a high school teacher. Ms Fowler never graduated from high school, instead working as a babysitter and ranch hand, and teaching herself in the local library. Lacking a formal education but determined to go to university, she submitted a list of books she had read as part of her college application > After winning a place at Arizona State University to study philosophy, she then transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, earning a degree in physics. In her final year at Penn, she wrote a blog entitled “If Susan can learn physics, so can you”, explaining how she caught up despite having no secondary maths education. By the time she reached Uber at age 24, she was a physicist and computer scientist, and wrote her first book about software architecture while working at the company Damn. Very impressive.

ktta 9y ago
>“When I was younger, I used to think that my unconventional upbringing was a weakness, but over the past few years I’ve learnt to see it as one of my greatest strengths,” she says. “I never had a single thing handed to me, I had to fight for everything I wanted, like my education. When I was harassed and discriminated against, I fought as hard as I could — because I hadn’t gone through all of that, I hadn’t worked so hard my entire life, just to have someone take it away from me.”
- myth_drannon 9y ago
  Just survival bias, for every fighter like her there are 99 others that fell through the cracks. Not everyone is born with such a strong will to succeed.
  - jonny_eh 9y ago
    What's the bias here? She seems to deserve all the positive attention she gets.
    - vailripper 9y ago
      Absolutely, but I think it can also be said that it's a pretty messed up system where it requires that will to succeed to have success.
    - cjbprime 9y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
  - DoreenMichele 9y ago
    Or perhaps the world is not so black and white. Perhaps her experiences taught her things women often seem to not know. Perhaps she had various forms of support that are not obvious here. I homeschooled my sons. Lack of formal education prior to university is not evidence that one is not getting support. There are parents that actively quash the dreams of their kids and insist the kids pursue something the parent feels matters. They push their kids into pursuing a particular path. This is often seen by outsiders as a good thing, but it usually is not. It usually means the kid never got to decide for themselves what they wanted out of life and simply did as they were told.
  - r00fus 9y ago
    I fail to see why her being proud of her success both despite and because of her upbringing should be cause of criticism just because she fails to acknowledge her "class peers" who failed to make it where she did... it's sort of implicit (esp. since she didn't in any way denigrate them for "not working hard enough").
    - erikpukinskis 9y ago
      I think the point is that as a group we should care about bias even though some people are able to fight through it. It’s like people who say “how could America be racist if Obamacare got elected” which I have been hearing a lot lately. You can have a system that’s massively unfair... the existence of a handful of people who succeed despite unfairness is not evidence of anything except that some people are extraordinary.
      - r00fus 9y ago
        To not expect bias for someone only talking about her own experiences (and not comparing herself to others) sounds like you're trying to be criticize for criticisms's sake. It's the onus of FT to contextualize Ms. Fowler's comments, if that's what you're getting at, but then again, it is FT not People magazine (take it for what it's worth).
muninn_ 9y ago
Does UPenn accept average intelligence people like myself? I think Susan is great, and she did amazing work, but she's also clearly top 1-5% brilliant. These stories give people like me false hope. As if I can pick myself up by my intellectual bootstraps and just study hard to be a physics/CS major and I'll just be able to make it into a top university. In university I was a C physics student and maybe a B CS student. And that wasn't at a school known for academic performance. In fact, when I took calculus (with little secondary (high school education) education because I worked) even with free tutoring and doing hundreds of practice problems I only barely passed with Cs.
- magic_beans 9y ago
  Going to a top university doesn't necessary correlate with having a successful career. You can definitely make a lot of money or find a lot of success even if your college academics were lacking.
  - reaperducer 9y ago
    I once saw a list of successful people who dropped out of either high school or college. It ranged from Peter Jennings to Steve Jobs to a number of billionaires. Very interesting.
    - iRideUnicornz 9y ago
      As nice of a story it makes, those people are the exceptions. For the vast overwhelming majority of the population, secondary -> post-secondary -> graduate studies (last one optional) is the best path to "success". Those people who are able to succeed even after dropping out are the types of people who, even if they were enrolled in a small, no-name community college, would still be able to succeed, not because of their education but rather because of their personality and drive.
- c0untzer0 9y ago
  Rarely are people truly inherently smarter than everyone else. All of our brains work differently; some of us respond to learning environments, others don't. Take things like IQ tests as a grain of salt; it's just another tool of hierarchy. Find the environment/learning style that works best for you.
dominotw 9y ago
>physicist and computer scientist, Don't you need a degree in computer science to be called computer scientist. Not sure if i'd call every software programmer a 'computer scientist'. Merely mentioning this bad apparently. downvotes.
- irremediable 9y ago
  I think it's being downvoted because it comes over as uncharitable and even petty. A computer scientist is one who practises and/or studies computer science, which she does. No, that doesn't require a CS degree, though it helps.
  - dominotw 9y ago
    I think its overly charitable to call someone computer scientist because they write code. Feels very silly and fake, something done to boost up the credentials. sorry.
    - marcelluspye 9y ago
      >call someone computer scientist because they write code You're the only one doing this. The article omits any justification for the terms, sure. And it could be a baseless claim. But I don't really see any reason to assume that's the case.
    - regulation_d 9y ago
      I mean, she wrote an O'Reilly book about microservice design. I don't think she's really hurting for credentials.
      - dominotw 9y ago
        Have you looked at other people on the list. Elected First female Chancellor of Germany vs wrote a book about microservices. Yes hurting for credentials in this context. Most people have no idea who she is, her only claim to fame is writing that blogpost.

ktta 9y ago

>“When I was younger, I used to think that my unconventional upbringing was a weakness, but over the past few years I’ve learnt to see it as one of my greatest strengths,” she says. “I never had a single thing handed to me, I had to fight for everything I wanted, like my education. When I was harassed and discriminated against, I fought as hard as I could — because I hadn’t gone through all of that, I hadn’t worked so hard my entire life, just to have someone take it away from me.”

myth_drannon 9y ago
Just survival bias, for every fighter like her there are 99 others that fell through the cracks. Not everyone is born with such a strong will to succeed.
- jonny_eh 9y ago
  What's the bias here? She seems to deserve all the positive attention she gets.
  - vailripper 9y ago
    Absolutely, but I think it can also be said that it's a pretty messed up system where it requires that will to succeed to have success.
  - cjbprime 9y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
- DoreenMichele 9y ago
  Or perhaps the world is not so black and white. Perhaps her experiences taught her things women often seem to not know. Perhaps she had various forms of support that are not obvious here. I homeschooled my sons. Lack of formal education prior to university is not evidence that one is not getting support. There are parents that actively quash the dreams of their kids and insist the kids pursue something the parent feels matters. They push their kids into pursuing a particular path. This is often seen by outsiders as a good thing, but it usually is not. It usually means the kid never got to decide for themselves what they wanted out of life and simply did as they were told.
- r00fus 9y ago
  I fail to see why her being proud of her success both despite and because of her upbringing should be cause of criticism just because she fails to acknowledge her "class peers" who failed to make it where she did... it's sort of implicit (esp. since she didn't in any way denigrate them for "not working hard enough").
  - erikpukinskis 9y ago
    I think the point is that as a group we should care about bias even though some people are able to fight through it. It’s like people who say “how could America be racist if Obamacare got elected” which I have been hearing a lot lately. You can have a system that’s massively unfair... the existence of a handful of people who succeed despite unfairness is not evidence of anything except that some people are extraordinary.
    - r00fus 9y ago
      To not expect bias for someone only talking about her own experiences (and not comparing herself to others) sounds like you're trying to be criticize for criticisms's sake. It's the onus of FT to contextualize Ms. Fowler's comments, if that's what you're getting at, but then again, it is FT not People magazine (take it for what it's worth).

muninn_ 9y ago

Does UPenn accept average intelligence people like myself? I think Susan is great, and she did amazing work, but she's also clearly top 1-5% brilliant. These stories give people like me false hope. As if I can pick myself up by my intellectual bootstraps and just study hard to be a physics/CS major and I'll just be able to make it into a top university. In university I was a C physics student and maybe a B CS student. And that wasn't at a school known for academic performance. In fact, when I took calculus (with little secondary (high school education) education because I worked) even with free tutoring and doing hundreds of practice problems I only barely passed with Cs.

magic_beans 9y ago
Going to a top university doesn't necessary correlate with having a successful career. You can definitely make a lot of money or find a lot of success even if your college academics were lacking.
- reaperducer 9y ago
  I once saw a list of successful people who dropped out of either high school or college. It ranged from Peter Jennings to Steve Jobs to a number of billionaires. Very interesting.
  - iRideUnicornz 9y ago
    As nice of a story it makes, those people are the exceptions. For the vast overwhelming majority of the population, secondary -> post-secondary -> graduate studies (last one optional) is the best path to "success". Those people who are able to succeed even after dropping out are the types of people who, even if they were enrolled in a small, no-name community college, would still be able to succeed, not because of their education but rather because of their personality and drive.
c0untzer0 9y ago
Rarely are people truly inherently smarter than everyone else. All of our brains work differently; some of us respond to learning environments, others don't. Take things like IQ tests as a grain of salt; it's just another tool of hierarchy. Find the environment/learning style that works best for you.

dominotw 9y ago

>physicist and computer scientist, Don't you need a degree in computer science to be called computer scientist. Not sure if i'd call every software programmer a 'computer scientist'. Merely mentioning this bad apparently. downvotes.

irremediable 9y ago
I think it's being downvoted because it comes over as uncharitable and even petty. A computer scientist is one who practises and/or studies computer science, which she does. No, that doesn't require a CS degree, though it helps.
- dominotw 9y ago
  I think its overly charitable to call someone computer scientist because they write code. Feels very silly and fake, something done to boost up the credentials. sorry.
  - marcelluspye 9y ago
    >call someone computer scientist because they write code You're the only one doing this. The article omits any justification for the terms, sure. And it could be a baseless claim. But I don't really see any reason to assume that's the case.
  - regulation_d 9y ago
    I mean, she wrote an O'Reilly book about microservice design. I don't think she's really hurting for credentials.
    - dominotw 9y ago
      Have you looked at other people on the list. Elected First female Chancellor of Germany vs wrote a book about microservices. Yes hurting for credentials in this context. Most people have no idea who she is, her only claim to fame is writing that blogpost.