Day one of my introduction to computer science course in university was composed of nearly all white male students. Women and minority students were vastly unde

Day one of my introduction to computer science course in university was composed of nearly all white male students. Women and minority students were vastly underrepresented in that class relative to the student body as a whole, even though literally anyone in the university could have signed up for the class and given it a go. That’s exactly how I ended up in the program, having started university with an “undeclared” major and really fallen in love with the subject (and this was right after the 2000 dot com crash, when job prospects were looking fairly grim, so I think most of us weren’t in it for the money). I’m willing to concede that I was given a head start over many students, having had exposure to computer programming and AP math courses in high school. And I’m willing to believe that the struggle of being the only woman or minority student in a class or a team is real, and causes some talented people to get discouraged and opt out. And I am all in favor of trying to address those issues, and any other forms of discrimination that people face. But was the disproportionate makeup of that intro to computer science class due in large part to discrimination? I don’t think so. I think it mostly reflected the fact that different demographics often have different sets of preferences.