4 ms·

No, not you being male. Other engineers being male ("role models in popular culture" not just day-to-day life).

jack-r-abbit 14y ago
I'm not sure what "role models in popular culture" I had in the 80's that steered me to be an engineer. It sure wasn't anybody on MTV. And assuming none of my school teachers were engineers, I didn't encounter my first (known to me) engineer until I got to college. But I started out just wanting to be a computer repairman because that looked like the future and the money would probably be good. It was after college that I realized my true passion was software and not hardware.
- loganfrederick 14y ago
  So this story implies you found out about computers somehow? That source might be more male-centric. Some people are generally more predisposed to some fields than others anyway, so it's hard to extrapolate your anecdotal experience into a full counterargument against her story.
  - jack-r-abbit 14y ago
    Some people are generally more predisposed to some fields than others anyway Agreed... perhaps this is another possible influence on the gender gap. But isn't a lot of this anecdotal? Edit: I found out about computers in school. I don't recall what grade.. somewhere in the 5th to 7th grade probably. I don't recall my middle school being male-centric but I suppose it could have been and I never noticed. I wanted to be a computer repairman after my sister told me about the nice guy that came to fix the copier in her office. He dressed nice. Kind of funny now that I'm where I am now. I don't like to dress up. :)
- kylebrown 14y ago
  The 80s.. hmm how about Jeff Bridges character in the movie Tron? Or the star character in the movie Wargames? If you've seen either of those, the main character being male could have been an influence (the movies certainly were for me). It wasn't until '95 that Angelina Jolie was in Hackers. Besides such movies, the other role models in popular culture would be the archetypical Einstein (Christopher Lloyd in Back to the Future), etc. In the west, engineers aren't held in as high esteem as eg China (where the president is an engineer), at least not until recently (with Zuckerberg as the modern archetype). There are historical female role models: Madame Curie, Grace Hopper, and Ada Lovelace probably the top three (and for a modern one, how about the founder of Adafruit? and so on and so forth). Showing their wiki pages to any young females, if the topic comes up, is a helpful contribution IMO.
  - jack-r-abbit 14y ago
    Movies perhaps. I don't recall when I saw Wargames... but at least a few years after it came out. I didn't get to the theater much so it would have been on VHS. I didn't see Tron until I was an adult. (gasp)

I'm not sure what "role models in popular culture" I had in the 80's that steered me to be an engineer. It sure wasn't anybody on MTV. And assuming none of my school teachers were engineers, I didn't encounter my first (known to me) engineer until I got to college. But I started out just wanting to be a computer repairman because that looked like the future and the money would probably be good. It was after college that I realized my true passion was software and not hardware.

loganfrederick 14y ago
So this story implies you found out about computers somehow? That source might be more male-centric. Some people are generally more predisposed to some fields than others anyway, so it's hard to extrapolate your anecdotal experience into a full counterargument against her story.
- jack-r-abbit 14y ago
  Some people are generally more predisposed to some fields than others anyway Agreed... perhaps this is another possible influence on the gender gap. But isn't a lot of this anecdotal? Edit: I found out about computers in school. I don't recall what grade.. somewhere in the 5th to 7th grade probably. I don't recall my middle school being male-centric but I suppose it could have been and I never noticed. I wanted to be a computer repairman after my sister told me about the nice guy that came to fix the copier in her office. He dressed nice. Kind of funny now that I'm where I am now. I don't like to dress up. :)
kylebrown 14y ago
The 80s.. hmm how about Jeff Bridges character in the movie Tron? Or the star character in the movie Wargames? If you've seen either of those, the main character being male could have been an influence (the movies certainly were for me). It wasn't until '95 that Angelina Jolie was in Hackers. Besides such movies, the other role models in popular culture would be the archetypical Einstein (Christopher Lloyd in Back to the Future), etc. In the west, engineers aren't held in as high esteem as eg China (where the president is an engineer), at least not until recently (with Zuckerberg as the modern archetype). There are historical female role models: Madame Curie, Grace Hopper, and Ada Lovelace probably the top three (and for a modern one, how about the founder of Adafruit? and so on and so forth). Showing their wiki pages to any young females, if the topic comes up, is a helpful contribution IMO.
- jack-r-abbit 14y ago
  Movies perhaps. I don't recall when I saw Wargames... but at least a few years after it came out. I didn't get to the theater much so it would have been on VHS. I didn't see Tron until I was an adult. (gasp)