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How Harvey Mudd Transformed Its CS Program And Nearly Closed Its Gender Gap
- auctiontheory 13y agoSuper cool. I hope more departments follow their lead. (Of course, most CS departments are not headed by women.)
- frankchn 13y agoThere may be more than you think, for instance: Stanford Computer Science is headed by Jennifer Widom. Berkeley EECS's Associate Chair is Tsu-Jae King Liu.
- newnewnew 13y agoHow big is Harvey Mudd's CS program?
- Luit2 13y agoHere are Harvey Mudd's acceptance rates by gender: Men 14.4% Women 38% Source: http://www.parchment.com/c/college/college-545-harvey-mudd-college.html http://www.parchment.com/c/college/college-545-harvey-mudd-c... I am perpetually bamboozled how anyone can think anecdotes like this matter. If Harvard wanted too I am sure they could make half their undergraduate population disabled black lesbians. That does not prove that your average state school is horrible and discriminatory just because that is not their class composition. Elite schools get more applicants of either gender than they have room for and those applicants are of very high quality with very high levels of interest in the subject matter.
- arjie 13y agoWell, the higher female acceptance rate may be because only good female students do CS. If you have a hostile environment, only the most motivated will succeed. It's like a sieve. You are applying selective pressure against a certain group of people succeeding. Expect to get only the most motivated. Not saying this is the case in reality, but I think the conclusion that they're indiscriminately accepting women is facile.
- codexon 13y agoCitation needed. It is much more plausible that these engineering colleges have laxer requirements for females in order to get a 50/50 gender balance rather than public school discrimination.
- arthulia 13y agoCitation needed. Anecdotal rebuttal: I know a bunch of female students at Harvey Mudd and that doesn't appear to be the case.
- codexon 13y agoIt doesn't need a citation, it is supported by Occam's razor while you are suggesting a complex explanation. How does Harvey Mudd magically close their gender gap as though they suddenly decided to stop discriminating against females all these years? If the girls you knew were, say 10% less capable compared to male applicants, would you be able to tell? I doubt it.
- arthulia 13y ago> If the girls you knew were, say 10% less capable compared to male applicants, would you be able to tell? I doubt it. If you can't tell then what difference does it make?
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- silvertonia 13y agoIt seems a bit odd that they're quoting their Junior class makeup-- makes me think that's the best data point they have, and it exaggerates their success. My understanding is that CS enrollment by gender isn't the issue, it's CS graduation rate.
- davorak 13y agoIn my lay observations most universities have a problem with females transferring out in the first two years. So it can across as impressive to me that they had such an even split in the 3rd year of classes. The program has only been going on for 6 years so I would be surprised if all of the upper level curriculum has even been transferred over flexible homework/project structure described so their is probably still room for improvement by continuing to apply the same strategy to the high level classes.
- teawithcarl 13y agoHarvey Mudd's come a long way. In the 1970's, the few women (less than ten) were joking referred to as "non-males".
- anonymous 13y agoYou know, on reflection, this is actually a good thing. Not because of the diversity - screw diversity. Because you'll have more people with aptitude admitted. Programming aptitude is mostly evenly distributed regardless of gender and race, therefore if you keep your number admitted persons constant, but give a good incentive for every kind of person to apply, you'll end up with better applicants. Or to put it another way, the best 1000 white male americans are worse than the best 1000 americans in general. And at least in this case, I'd expect that there would be about as many capable females as males. Things might go skewed if we try to have the same number of heterosexuals and homosexuals or left-handed and right-handed people though.
- 011011100 13y ago"Programming aptitude is mostly evenly distributed regardless of gender and race," Is it really?
- davorak 13y agoIs there solid evidence of an IQ difference between the genders or a general subject, with a biological understanding of why such a difference exists? I currently have not come across any such solid evidence and biological understanding.
- mathattack 13y agoIndependently of whether it is or isn't, there is benefit to trying to get as broad a swatch of the population into programming as possible. My thinking on this has changed over the years. I used to view programming as a pure meritocracy. Then I realized that the same thing could be said about so many other male dominated fields, whose barriers eventually broke down. (Law, Accounting, Teaching...) Now my inclination is to believe that there are other things at work: parental expectations, mentorship, etc. that are bigger drivers. And how much downside is there if we smartly (key word!) try to be more inclusive in the field? I don't mean lowering standards, but I do mean outreach, identifying mentors, etc.