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I agree, Math and Physics are in many ways similar to CS, and yet have more women. I think it might be useful to ask: In what ways are Math and Physics are dif
by stcredzero 9y ago
I agree, Math and Physics are in many ways similar to CS, and yet have more women.
I think it might be useful to ask: In what ways are Math and Physics are different from the programming field? I think the requirement to work together on larger projects is different. What is the gender distribution of physicists working at CERN?
My experience in school is that the smartest girls studied a lot more, and the smartest guys messed around a lot more.
Sounds about right.
CS is programming and programming is a lot of messing around.
Is it? Back in the day, there were CS professors who proudly declared they didn't like programming.
- ploxiln 9y agoBack in the day, there were a few more women in CS :) I still agree that CS being "less social" is a huge factor. But have to admit it seems like there's some other factors too, and I think the "less social" and "wild west" combo is pretty significant.
- curtis 9y ago> Back in the day, there were a few more women in CS :) I actually think this is probably wrong. Back in the day there was a higher percentage of women in CS. It's possible that in absolute numbers there are as many women today in CS as there was then. That's because there's probably a lot more people in CS overall. I also think it's likely that back in the day most college-educated programmers had EE degrees, not CS degrees, so what you'd really want to look at is the percentage of women in CS and EE, not just in CS.
- stcredzero 9y agoBack in the day, there were a few more women in CS :) The professor I was thinking of was a woman, actually.