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Same for Northern Europe. Most of the smart kids in high school were girls. Some went on to study science, but I don't think any of them were interested in comp

by wvh 7y ago

Same for Northern Europe. Most of the smart kids in high school were girls. Some went on to study science, but I don't think any of them were interested in computers or went for CS degrees. In fact I know way more women with math and other science degrees; I am not sure why those women did not show interest in specifically engineering or CS, which do have low numbers of female students. Perhaps those fields are perceived as not social, introverted, not warm or inviting; but I feel it would probably be a bad idea to market them as such and force a lot of young women into engineering and CS out of some misguided principle rather than their own future happiness. Of course there are certain men that make claims about women's ability to do math, but in my experience those are often men that clearly don't possess that ability themselves... Their opinion might be mostly detrimental to their own offspring rather than to society as a whole. Those tend not to be people whose boys attend university either.

bonoboTP 7y ago
I don't know where this non-welcoming stereotype comes from. CompSci is not the same as gamer culture or techies. In fact, in my Hungarian Uni, there were many people who had liked tinkering and modding their computer (without really knowing what the parts did or what the numbers meant) for the newest games and knew how to set up routers etc thought that CS is surely what they should study. Many quickly dropped out when they realized there's so much math involved and it's not all about creating apps etc. So so many complaints about who needs math, why learn these old topics, why not the newest tech which you actually use in real jobs (there were electives covering those). Those who survived this filter tend to be less of the tech fan boy culture. Of course being a girl had a special status, there's just no way around that when they are below 10%. There were many cases when a class had only 1 or 2 girls, or I remember when the game design class had their first ever female student, whom I knew. She didn't recall any inappropriate things said to her. But you have to have a really strong interest in the topic to accept being the only girl in so many situations and groups. Just "going with the flow" won't carry you there. This whole thing must have some deeper roots than what it's being reduced to today, because the effect comes up in many countries even before US influence became this strong. In fact in the former Eastern Bloc countries there was a lot of encouragement for women getting educated and getting more traditionally male jobs.

by wvh 7y ago

bonoboTP 7y ago

I don't know where this non-welcoming stereotype comes from. CompSci is not the same as gamer culture or techies. In fact, in my Hungarian Uni, there were many people who had liked tinkering and modding their computer (without really knowing what the parts did or what the numbers meant) for the newest games and knew how to set up routers etc thought that CS is surely what they should study. Many quickly dropped out when they realized there's so much math involved and it's not all about creating apps etc. So so many complaints about who needs math, why learn these old topics, why not the newest tech which you actually use in real jobs (there were electives covering those). Those who survived this filter tend to be less of the tech fan boy culture. Of course being a girl had a special status, there's just no way around that when they are below 10%. There were many cases when a class had only 1 or 2 girls, or I remember when the game design class had their first ever female student, whom I knew. She didn't recall any inappropriate things said to her. But you have to have a really strong interest in the topic to accept being the only girl in so many situations and groups. Just "going with the flow" won't carry you there. This whole thing must have some deeper roots than what it's being reduced to today, because the effect comes up in many countries even before US influence became this strong. In fact in the former Eastern Bloc countries there was a lot of encouragement for women getting educated and getting more traditionally male jobs.