5 ms·

For anyone who didn't read the linked article (it's short), it suggests that a key element is careful design of intro courses. Students with computer science e

by majos 7y ago

For anyone who didn't read the linked article (it's short), it suggests that a key element is careful design of intro courses. Students with computer science experience get a more advanced course that is explicitly designed not to make them more competitive in second-year courses (instead, it starts on material that will re-appear in third-year courses). Students with no computer science experience get their own intro course. And there is yet another "green" intro course tailored to biological applications. The article suggests that these practices help level the playing field in the first two years of the computer science major, by which point people have enough invested to finish. On reflection, these aren't new suggestions. Unlocking the Clubhouse, a 2002 book on women's experiences studying computer science, made similar recommendations. But I guess most colleges are struggling to handle the glut of first-year computer science students, let alone teach more courses to encourage more of them.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
plughs 7y ago
It's an interesting insight. When applying to colleges I never considered applying for CS as I (female) had no programming experience whatsoever, and seemed to be surrounded by people (male) who'd been working on computers for years, ( I'll leave speculation on that for another day ) It was only because they forced EE majors to take programming courses that I ended up in the field. I wrote my first "hello world" as an 18 year old freshman, but it never really seemed to matter.
- jgust 7y ago
  Male here. CS courses were _not accessible_ to those without prior experience, male or female, full stop. That issue was compounded by having to use the IDEs and tooling available to us 10+ years ago. It wasn't until the last year of my business degree I was exposed to the simplicity of .NET/Visual Basic that made programming interesting, fun, and accessible to someone without experience. If only I had that exposure 4 years sooner, I'd have a CS degree today. C'est la vie.
  - AdrianB1 7y ago
    I graduated college 20 years ago; everything I learned in college was new for everyone there (I had prior experience in other languages) and we were approximately 50%-50% male to female. From my former colleagues most males work in IT, most females work in other domains, by choice. It was no pipeline problem at that time, but the results are the same: people tend to do what they like and I don't see here (Eastern Europe) too many females that like CS. We have 80% females in marketing and over 60% in sales, how about forcing some of them to do IT instead?
  - plughs 7y ago
    When I started the "IDE" was vi running on a Solaris mainframe. 'vi' has has never been accused of being user friendly but since this was pre-linux, I'm not sure any of the experienced coders had ever seen either before. In retrospect it was a pretty good equalizer.
- ledauphin 7y ago
  hmm. I guess I'm in a small minority, but I had never written a line of code in my life before my CS100 class.
HeroOfAges 7y ago
How does this level the playing field? Why would this not reduce the overall rate of learning for everyone to suit the needs of the slowest students?
- kaikai 7y ago
  Inexperience doesn't equal unintelligence. Making sure that your intro class structure supports people with varying experience levels means you're more likely to engage people with the right interest and capabilities, not less so.
  - HeroOfAges 7y ago
    I've never experienced or witnessed a scenario in which trying to support varying levels of experience didn't result in lowering of standards. People with the right interest and capabilities will strive to clear the bar and will not expect the bar to be lowered for them.
    - hkmurakami 7y ago
      There's the "math majors' math track" and the non math majors' math track at most institutions. Even within the majors track, there's separation between experience levels and intended tracks within the discipline. Ex: MAT215-217: Recommended for math majors, some prior experience in constructing formal proofs is useful but not required. MAT216-218: Accelerated math major sequence, for students with substantial background in university-level proof-based analysis courses. MAT214-204-203: Alternative path to majoring in math, with a more algebraic introduction to proofs MAT203-204-215: Alternative path to majoring in math; good path for the applied math certificate. https://www.math.princeton.edu/undergraduate/placement/sequences https://www.math.princeton.edu/undergraduate/placement/seque... Lumping all these students into one general course would be a disservice to everyone, like you say, and should be spilt up.
      - Mirioron 7y ago
        But the difference in your case is that we don't expect, nor care, whether math majors and non-math majors end up at the same destination. It's okay and expected that math majors will end up learning more and becoming better at math. But when we're talking about people studying the same major, then this is not okay. You will either end up slowing down the fast track students or you will give them an advantage over those that weren't on the fast track.

by majos 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

plughs 7y ago

It's an interesting insight. When applying to colleges I never considered applying for CS as I (female) had no programming experience whatsoever, and seemed to be surrounded by people (male) who'd been working on computers for years, ( I'll leave speculation on that for another day ) It was only because they forced EE majors to take programming courses that I ended up in the field. I wrote my first "hello world" as an 18 year old freshman, but it never really seemed to matter.

jgust 7y ago
Male here. CS courses were _not accessible_ to those without prior experience, male or female, full stop. That issue was compounded by having to use the IDEs and tooling available to us 10+ years ago. It wasn't until the last year of my business degree I was exposed to the simplicity of .NET/Visual Basic that made programming interesting, fun, and accessible to someone without experience. If only I had that exposure 4 years sooner, I'd have a CS degree today. C'est la vie.
- AdrianB1 7y ago
  I graduated college 20 years ago; everything I learned in college was new for everyone there (I had prior experience in other languages) and we were approximately 50%-50% male to female. From my former colleagues most males work in IT, most females work in other domains, by choice. It was no pipeline problem at that time, but the results are the same: people tend to do what they like and I don't see here (Eastern Europe) too many females that like CS. We have 80% females in marketing and over 60% in sales, how about forcing some of them to do IT instead?
- plughs 7y ago
  When I started the "IDE" was vi running on a Solaris mainframe. 'vi' has has never been accused of being user friendly but since this was pre-linux, I'm not sure any of the experienced coders had ever seen either before. In retrospect it was a pretty good equalizer.
ledauphin 7y ago
hmm. I guess I'm in a small minority, but I had never written a line of code in my life before my CS100 class.

HeroOfAges 7y ago

How does this level the playing field? Why would this not reduce the overall rate of learning for everyone to suit the needs of the slowest students?

kaikai 7y ago
Inexperience doesn't equal unintelligence. Making sure that your intro class structure supports people with varying experience levels means you're more likely to engage people with the right interest and capabilities, not less so.
- HeroOfAges 7y ago
  I've never experienced or witnessed a scenario in which trying to support varying levels of experience didn't result in lowering of standards. People with the right interest and capabilities will strive to clear the bar and will not expect the bar to be lowered for them.
  - hkmurakami 7y ago
    There's the "math majors' math track" and the non math majors' math track at most institutions. Even within the majors track, there's separation between experience levels and intended tracks within the discipline. Ex: MAT215-217: Recommended for math majors, some prior experience in constructing formal proofs is useful but not required. MAT216-218: Accelerated math major sequence, for students with substantial background in university-level proof-based analysis courses. MAT214-204-203: Alternative path to majoring in math, with a more algebraic introduction to proofs MAT203-204-215: Alternative path to majoring in math; good path for the applied math certificate. https://www.math.princeton.edu/undergraduate/placement/sequences https://www.math.princeton.edu/undergraduate/placement/seque... Lumping all these students into one general course would be a disservice to everyone, like you say, and should be spilt up.
    - Mirioron 7y ago
      But the difference in your case is that we don't expect, nor care, whether math majors and non-math majors end up at the same destination. It's okay and expected that math majors will end up learning more and becoming better at math. But when we're talking about people studying the same major, then this is not okay. You will either end up slowing down the fast track students or you will give them an advantage over those that weren't on the fast track.