5 ms·

How CMU increased number of women in CS from 7% to 37% [pdf]

27 points by rmanocha 17y ago

quellhorst 17y ago
I tried to find out how, but there was too much filler to find the reason in under a few minutes.
- maggie 17y ago
  I didn't re-read it, but from what I remember, they started an intensive effort to both retain women who started in computing classes as well as understand the reasons why less women start computing and continue. They had a smaller usegroup they used for their study and show that women drop out thinking that they're not doing as well as men in the same classes when really, they're doing about above average.
- barry-cotter 17y ago
  A variety of things. Discrimination against ubernerds In addition to demonstrated academic competence, the Admissions Office began giving more weight to non-academic factors, looking for applicants with leadership potential and a commitment to give back to the community. Mentoring Programme The most extensive single activity of the Women@SCS Advisory Council has been the Big Sister/Little Sister program, which pairs upper-class and graduate students with firstyear and sophomore CS majors. Changing emphasis/delivery of (introductory) courses Even more, insights provided by the Council are likely to have profound impact on the curriculum. In her green paper circulated at a meeting with faculty, senior Ting-Chih Shih clearly pointed out that the current CS undergraduate curriculum serves male students far better than females. For one, the entry programming courses favor students with more experience (usually men) who seem to get better scores effortlessly As a result, many women begin thinking that learning computer science takes innate talent and no amount of hard work will pay off They start to lose confidence and forget their initial interest in computer science Moreover, the way lectures are presented seem to appeal to men more. In general, females feel that the birds-eye view of a problem, and the end result, are more relevant than the coding details in between
  - tigerthink 17y ago
    >In general, females feel that the birds-eye view of a problem, and the end result, are more relevant than the coding details in between Doesn't this suggest that men are more likely to be wired for programming?
    - CrLf 17y ago
      Actually, doesn't that mean that women don't have what it takes to actually be a programmer? The devil is in the details, as they say. Not stating a fact, just pointing out that in the context of a technical profession, that citation actually sounds derogatory.
      - spamizbad 17y ago
        Since when has dithering over details been recognized as a favorable trait in programmers? Also, that response was in the context of intro-level CS courses: so if you're fretting over the implementation details of glorified Hello World applications, instead of focusing on the overarching concepts , I'd be inclined to say you'd better change your ways or you won't be a very good programmer.
        3pt14159 17y ago
        Better to have an overall view while learning to program, and a penchant for details when implementing one tiny little part of a 1 million line code base that 100 other people are also working on.
        CrLf 17y ago
        I have three things to say about that: 1. Not every CS graduate will work as a programmer. Many will work in other technical roles within the industry. Do not assume that CS knowledge is only appliable to programming. I graduated from a CS course and I'm currently a sysadmin, and having a CS degree makes me a better professional; 2. Having little interest in the details is usually just common-speak for lack of technical skill. Having the skill/competence and lacking the interest is seldom found in the same person; 3. It's the introductory classes that lay out the ways in which one faces every programming problem. Not paying attention to detail means allowing bad habits to root themselves. I still remember some of those "details" from my introductory classes to programming 12 years ago, and I frequently other people (otherwise experienced) commiting mistakes that I manage to avoid due to those "details".
ShardPhoenix 17y ago
Sounds like the main thing they did was to emphasize that no previous programming experience was needed to study CS there.
mahmud 17y ago
It's only 6 pages, and clearly says: "The findings of this study have been well documented elsewhere and we will not go into details here." The paper is a summary and synthesis of an entire project, see some of their publications here: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/gendergap/www/papers/ http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/gendergap/www/papers/ Their approach is multi-pronged and involved: 1) Meticulous study of male and female CS students' attitudes towards computer science education. "Funded by Sloan, the project consisted of hundreds of interviews with both male and female CS students about their histories with computing, interests, motivations and aspirations, reasons for majoring in CS, and their experiences in the undergraduate program. Conducted over a four-year period, the project was able to track many students throughout their time at Carnegie Mellon. By interviewing students once a semester." 2) Education of new teachers of Advanced Placement (AP) Exam for Computer Science in a teacher summer school and alerting them to the gender gap in computing. This summer school took place in CMU, and since it was addressing gender gap, CMU became some sort of Mecca for those who who care about women's involvement in computing. 3) Revamping of the admissions process. "In addition to demonstrated academic competence, the Admissions Office began giving more weight to non-academic factors, looking for applicants with leadership potential and a commitment to “give back to the community.” These broadened criteria also became important in awarding financial aid .. About the same time, Allan Fisher also conveyed to the Admissions Office his goal of a gender-balanced program. He felt it was important to get the message out that “no prior programming experience is necessary” to enter the CMU computer science program. The image of a CS student as someone (usually male) who has played with computers since early childhood is widespread. This often discourages many otherwise talented students from applying to a computer science program." 4) "A Supportive Community: The Women@SCS Advisory Council: The Women@SCS Advisory Council was created in the fall of 1999 and has since met weekly during the academic year. Membership includes undergraduates representing all four years and graduate students representing the various departments within SCS*". 9
- gritzko 17y ago
  >> Admissions Office began giving more weight to non-academic factors, looking for applicants with leadership potential and a commitment to “give back to the community.” Oh, God! What is the plan? Train students in "leadership" and "networking", leave boring technical stuff to those nerds in India or China?
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
zandor 17y ago
My university used a rather simple bait and switch trick with the degree names and changed the name of power engineering to a more friendly energy and environmental engineering. It actually worked pretty well. There was a significant increase in female students and they didn't change to another degree later.
- catch23 17y ago
  Hm, interesting. Maybe computer science needs a new hip name to increase enrollment. We could call it "Autonomous Human Sociology".
forensic 17y ago
So they increased female students by... 1. Giving female students special benefits and privileges. 1.1. Access to Big Sister program. 1.2. Special female-only clubs. 1.3. Special favour in admissions. 1.4. Special favour in high school. 2. Stopped evaluating new students on ability in computer science (which is based, like anything else, on experience) and started evaluating them on extracurriculars and intangibles. Does this seem kind of fucked to anyone else? They basically threw merit out the window because they'd rather have diversity than talent. Are math programs going to start admitting people who have no experience or proven ability in math now, because those people do more charity work than math nerds? Are chemistry students going to be chosen for their leadership ability rather than scientific ability?
- eb 17y ago
  I don't think you understand how college admissions work. Students are generally accepted based on their overall academic record. Grades, SAT score, extracurriculars, etc. Students are not accepted to CS programs because they've written a lot of prior code. I'm sure most incoming chemistry students have not spent time inside a lab outside of their high school chemistry class. College is where you specialize in a particular field so students are accepted based on their overall aptitude and not experience in a specific subject.
  - forensic 17y ago
    ... of course I understand how college admissions work. Do you assume that I am a total idiot or something? :) "the Admissions Office began giving more weight to non-academic factors, looking for applicants with leadership potential and a commitment to “give back to the community.” These broadened criteria also became important in awarding financial aid." They changed the weighting to emphasize intangibles such as charity and "leadership potential". "He felt it was important to get the message out that “no prior programming experience is necessary” to enter the CMU computer science program." They changed the weighting to de-emphasize experience - which is the #1 correlate to ability. "I'm sure most incoming chemistry students have not spent time inside a lab outside of their high school chemistry class." But if there was a student who spent time outside the lab, they would give that student special consideration because of proven ability and interest in the field. It just so happens that the majority of CS students are going to have experience outside the computer lab, because in this world everyone has their own computer. Most people don't have their own chemistry lab.
srn 17y ago
According to their research, women started out with much less confidence but by the junior year it has started to level out when the classes become more difficult for both genders. See section "Gap Between Perceived and Actual Ability" and "Confidence Gap Narrows" Also see "Geek Mythology: Lore about Being in CS" specifically "It is important to note that most of the CS students (both male and female) we interviewed feel they do not match the stereotype: their interests are varied (including sports, theater, poetry) and not isolated to computer science. " http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/gendergap/www/papers/si.. http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/gendergap/www/papers/si.... This paper expounds more on the view that a student must be absorbed in computers 24/7 and that women's perception is that they must be this way to succeed: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/gendergap/www/papers/an...but http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/gendergap/www/papers/an... men who are not like that still feel like they can be successful in computer science under "The Non-Hacker Male" from that paper. Based on this information, I believe the stereotypes are self perpetuating and breaking the feedback loop will help a lot. I ask that you personally help by keeping an open mind.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
superfly 17y ago
I post on this site under another name that is assumed male. Why? Because I am automatically voted down for stronger opinions, particularly as a female. Male nerds DO discriminate. That said, in real life, nerd culture has served me well. It does not serve me well in the group-think that is the internet. Regarding this article, I feel particularly qualified to write down my perspective since I started a comp sci program at a prestigious college in the mid-80's and was overwhelmed by the lack of support. I believe this was more than just a gender problem. I personally didn't grok programming until years later, when I took courses with female teachers. They somehow understood what I was missing in order to develop the abstract thinking necessary to succeed in creating working software. I didn't give up because I loved the subject matter, but it took a long long time to develop the skill set to understand the material. I had to learn how to think more the way my male friends thought. I had to focus on details that would later be less than useful to me but in order to get to the bigger picture I had a talent for, I had to "suffer" the pedantry of the male thought process. So many times I read a comp sci text or popular "how to" book written by a man, and I would get frustrated because, I believe, men tend to learn better by giving the small, inside detail BEFORE the big picture is developed. I recall many attempts at studying assembly language and giving up because moving one bit from register to another never made sense until I understood exactly how higher level data structures were composed. All the binary math and computer architecture was never going to get me there. I could do the individual problems but could never create a picture in my head of how these small pieces fit together. At some point it just clicked. Probably after reading some books that were more appropriate for me. No teacher was ever able to communicate ideas at that level. If you don't give me the grander scheme, the WHY, listening to the how doesn't stick. I had a tested talent for spoken languages. I had decent math scores. I just didn't get the male patterns of thought. Someone like me is better off learning say, C#, then the .NET CLR, then the assembly language beneath. My career went backwards, too. I started out in high level languages, then I descended into more and more detail level comp sci until the present--I am now a C++ developer on a huge huge code base that encompasses algorithms and real computer science. My belief is that the top-notch programmers I now work with (I mean, these people were pioneers and I am surrounded by some that literally wrote the book) are mostly from educational backgrounds where they had to learn computer architecture FIRST. A good example of how the above ideas manifest themselves: my male colleagues don't have to Google say, the use of ftell/fseek/fgetpos. I do. Every single time. I simple don't remember. If you sat me down in a job interview and asked to apply these to say, finding a char in a string, I would write down broken code. But I have personally written several programs that utilize these functions in various ways. You would think me a complete idiot. While my male counterparts have this sort of detail, their weakness and majority of time is spent on understanding the main goal in the first place. They ask more questions about why we are taking a certain approach (these are GOOD questions, don't get me wrong), whereas I have to spend more time actually getting syntax issues right. Not much more, but I will never be the person who just sits down and starts coding and only has to hit the compile button once or twice for it to work. By the time the guys comprehend the why, I already have a basic specification in my head. This talent means I "get things done" well enough for management, but my colleagues would collectively say "she's decent but not detail-minded." Why? I might forget a detail about where to put a file or leave out a case/condition that I didn't think of because I don't usually agonize over all the possible points of failure. My approach assumes we WILL leave out a case and I write code that leaves open the possibility to modify it easily. Reading my code, there is never any question about what to modify to make it work. I like being this person, because while my stuff breaks just like everyone else's, I can fix my stuff faster than anyone else can fix theirs.
merciless 17y ago
Regarding this article, I feel particularly qualified to write down my perspective since I started a comp sci program at a prestigious college in the mid-80's and was overwhelmed by the lack of support. I believe this was more than just a gender problem. I personally didn't grok programming until years later, when I took courses with female teachers. They somehow understood what I was missing in order to develop the abstract thinking necessary to succeed in creating working software. I didn't give up because I loved the subject matter, but it took a long long time to develop the skill set to understand the material. I had to learn how to think more the way my male friends thought. I had to focus on details that would later be less than useful to me but in order to get to the bigger picture I had a talent for, I had to "suffer" the pedantry of the male thought process. So many times I read a comp sci text or popular "how to" book written by a man, and I would get frustrated because, I believe, men tend to learn better by giving the small, inside detail BEFORE the big picture is developed. I recall many attempts at studying assembly language and giving up because moving one bit from register to another never made sense until I understood exactly how higher level data structures were composed. All the binary math and computer architecture was never going to get me there. I could do the individual problems but could never create a picture in my head of how these small pieces fit together. At some point it just clicked. Probably after reading some books that were more appropriate for me. No teacher was ever able to communicate ideas at that level. If you don't give me the grander scheme, the WHY, listening to the how doesn't stick. I had a tested talent for spoken languages. I had decent math scores. I just didn't get the male patterns of thought. Someone like me is better off learning say, C#, then the .NET CLR, then the assembly language beneath. My career went backwards, too. I started out in high level languages, then I descended into more and more detail level comp sci until the present--I am now a C++ developer on a huge huge code base that encompasses algorithms and real computer science. My belief is that the top-notch programmers I now work with (I mean, these people were pioneers and I am surrounded by some that literally wrote the book) are mostly from educational backgrounds where they had to learn computer architecture FIRST. A good example of how the above ideas manifest themselves: my male colleagues don't have to Google say, the use of ftell/fseek/fgetpos. I do. Every single time. I simple don't remember. If you sat me down in a job interview and asked to apply these to say, finding a char in a string, I would write down broken code. But I have personally written several programs that utilize these functions in various ways. You would think me a complete idiot. While my male counterparts have this sort of detail, their weakness and majority of time is spent on understanding the main goal in the first place. They ask more questions about why we are taking a certain approach (these are GOOD questions, don't get me wrong), whereas I have to spend more time actually getting syntax issues right. Not much more, but I will never be the person who just sits down and starts coding and only has to hit the compile button once or twice for it to work. By the time the guys comprehend the why, I already have a basic specification in my head. This talent means I "get things done" well enough for management, but my colleagues would collectively say "she's decent but not detail-minded." Why? I might forget a detail about where to put a file or leave out a case/condition that I didn't think of because I don't usually agonize over all the possible points of failure. My approach assumes we WILL leave out a case and I write code that leaves open the possibility to modify it easily. Reading my code, there is never any question about what to modify to make it work. I like being this person, because while my stuff breaks just like everyone else's, I can fix my stuff faster than anyone else can fix theirs.
anamax 17y ago
The author says that retention is important but I didn't see anything about either retention or graduation rates. If the "extra" women aren't graduating at a reasonable rate, did admitting them do them any good? Or, is that the wrong question? Looking at the numbers, we see a change from 89 men and 7 women (96 total) to 83 men and 49 women (132 total) enrolled. Looking at admission rates shows us how it was done. The women's admission rates were basically unchanged, from 34% to 36%, so the increase in women admitted and enrolled is due almost entirely to the increase in applications by women. At the same time, the overall admission rates dropped from 26% to 12%. Since the population has only two components, men and women, and the rates for women were unchanged means that the admission rates for men dropped significantly. I wonder what relationship the admissions criteria have to success in the program. However, the numbers suggest another question. What about the guys who were displaced by women? (There were at least 6 and no men got any of the "expansion" slots.) They get the same benefits that the rest of us get from more women in CMU CS, but they "paid" more than the rest of us. ("But for" the decision to admit women on a different scale, they would have gotten in.) Shouldn't they be compensated?
ephedra 17y ago
Regarding this article, I feel particularly qualified to write down my perspective since I started a comp sci program at a prestigious college in the mid-80's and was overwhelmed by the lack of support. I believe this was more than just a gender problem. I personally didn't grok programming until years later, when I took courses with female teachers. They somehow understood what I was missing in order to develop the abstract thinking necessary to succeed in creating working software. I didn't give up because I loved the subject matter, but it took a long long time to develop the skill set to understand the material. I had to learn how to think more the way my male friends thought. I had to focus on details that would later be less than useful to me but in order to get to the bigger picture I had a talent for, I had to "suffer" the pedantry of the male thought process. So many times I read a comp sci text or popular "how to" book written by a man, and I would get frustrated because, I believe, men tend to learn better by giving the small, inside detail BEFORE the big picture is developed. I recall many attempts at studying assembly language and giving up because moving one bit from register to another never made sense until I understood exactly how higher level data structures were composed. All the binary math and computer architecture was never going to get me there. I could do the individual problems but could never create a picture in my head of how these small pieces fit together. At some point it just clicked. Probably after reading some books that were more appropriate for me. No teacher was ever able to communicate ideas at that level. If you don't give me the grander scheme, the WHY, listening to the how doesn't stick. I had a tested talent for spoken languages. I had decent math scores. I just didn't get the male patterns of thought. Someone like me is better off learning say, C#, then the .NET CLR, then the assembly language beneath. My career went backwards, too. I started out in high level languages, then I descended into more and more detail level comp sci until the present--I am now a C++ developer on a huge huge code base that encompasses algorithms and real computer science. My belief is that the top-notch programmers I now work with (I mean, these people were pioneers and I am surrounded by some that literally wrote the book) are mostly from educational backgrounds where they had to learn computer architecture FIRST. A good example of how the above ideas manifest themselves: my male colleagues don't have to Google say, the use of ftell/fseek/fgetpos. I do. Every single time. I simple don't remember. If you sat me down in a job interview and asked to apply these to say, finding a char in a string, I would write down broken code. But I have personally written several programs that utilize these functions in various ways. You would think me a complete idiot. While my male counterparts have this sort of detail, their weakness and majority of time is spent on understanding the main goal in the first place. They ask more questions about why we are taking a certain approach (these are GOOD questions, don't get me wrong), whereas I have to spend more time actually getting syntax issues right. Not much more, but I will never be the person who just sits down and starts coding and only has to hit the compile button once or twice for it to work. By the time the guys comprehend the why, I already have a basic specification in my head. This talent means I "get things done" well enough for management, but my colleagues would collectively say "she's decent but not detail-minded." Why? I might forget a detail about where to put a file or leave out a case/condition that I didn't think of because I don't usually agonize over all the possible points of failure. My approach assumes we WILL leave out a case and I write code that leaves open the possibility to modify it easily. Reading my code, there is never any question about what to modify to make it work. I like being this person, because while my stuff breaks just like everyone else's, I can fix my stuff faster than anyone else can fix theirs.

27 points by rmanocha 17y ago

quellhorst 17y ago

I tried to find out how, but there was too much filler to find the reason in under a few minutes.

maggie 17y ago
I didn't re-read it, but from what I remember, they started an intensive effort to both retain women who started in computing classes as well as understand the reasons why less women start computing and continue. They had a smaller usegroup they used for their study and show that women drop out thinking that they're not doing as well as men in the same classes when really, they're doing about above average.
barry-cotter 17y ago
A variety of things. Discrimination against ubernerds In addition to demonstrated academic competence, the Admissions Office began giving more weight to non-academic factors, looking for applicants with leadership potential and a commitment to give back to the community. Mentoring Programme The most extensive single activity of the Women@SCS Advisory Council has been the Big Sister/Little Sister program, which pairs upper-class and graduate students with firstyear and sophomore CS majors. Changing emphasis/delivery of (introductory) courses Even more, insights provided by the Council are likely to have profound impact on the curriculum. In her green paper circulated at a meeting with faculty, senior Ting-Chih Shih clearly pointed out that the current CS undergraduate curriculum serves male students far better than females. For one, the entry programming courses favor students with more experience (usually men) who seem to get better scores effortlessly As a result, many women begin thinking that learning computer science takes innate talent and no amount of hard work will pay off They start to lose confidence and forget their initial interest in computer science Moreover, the way lectures are presented seem to appeal to men more. In general, females feel that the birds-eye view of a problem, and the end result, are more relevant than the coding details in between
- tigerthink 17y ago
  >In general, females feel that the birds-eye view of a problem, and the end result, are more relevant than the coding details in between Doesn't this suggest that men are more likely to be wired for programming?
  - CrLf 17y ago
    Actually, doesn't that mean that women don't have what it takes to actually be a programmer? The devil is in the details, as they say. Not stating a fact, just pointing out that in the context of a technical profession, that citation actually sounds derogatory.
    - spamizbad 17y ago
      Since when has dithering over details been recognized as a favorable trait in programmers? Also, that response was in the context of intro-level CS courses: so if you're fretting over the implementation details of glorified Hello World applications, instead of focusing on the overarching concepts , I'd be inclined to say you'd better change your ways or you won't be a very good programmer.
      - 3pt14159 17y ago
        Better to have an overall view while learning to program, and a penchant for details when implementing one tiny little part of a 1 million line code base that 100 other people are also working on.
      - CrLf 17y ago
        I have three things to say about that: 1. Not every CS graduate will work as a programmer. Many will work in other technical roles within the industry. Do not assume that CS knowledge is only appliable to programming. I graduated from a CS course and I'm currently a sysadmin, and having a CS degree makes me a better professional; 2. Having little interest in the details is usually just common-speak for lack of technical skill. Having the skill/competence and lacking the interest is seldom found in the same person; 3. It's the introductory classes that lay out the ways in which one faces every programming problem. Not paying attention to detail means allowing bad habits to root themselves. I still remember some of those "details" from my introductory classes to programming 12 years ago, and I frequently other people (otherwise experienced) commiting mistakes that I manage to avoid due to those "details".

ShardPhoenix 17y ago

Sounds like the main thing they did was to emphasize that no previous programming experience was needed to study CS there.

mahmud 17y ago

It's only 6 pages, and clearly says: "The findings of this study have been well documented elsewhere and we will not go into details here." The paper is a summary and synthesis of an entire project, see some of their publications here: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/gendergap/www/papers/ http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/gendergap/www/papers/ Their approach is multi-pronged and involved: 1) Meticulous study of male and female CS students' attitudes towards computer science education. "Funded by Sloan, the project consisted of hundreds of interviews with both male and female CS students about their histories with computing, interests, motivations and aspirations, reasons for majoring in CS, and their experiences in the undergraduate program. Conducted over a four-year period, the project was able to track many students throughout their time at Carnegie Mellon. By interviewing students once a semester." 2) Education of new teachers of Advanced Placement (AP) Exam for Computer Science in a teacher summer school and alerting them to the gender gap in computing. This summer school took place in CMU, and since it was addressing gender gap, CMU became some sort of Mecca for those who who care about women's involvement in computing. 3) Revamping of the admissions process. "In addition to demonstrated academic competence, the Admissions Office began giving more weight to non-academic factors, looking for applicants with leadership potential and a commitment to “give back to the community.” These broadened criteria also became important in awarding financial aid .. About the same time, Allan Fisher also conveyed to the Admissions Office his goal of a gender-balanced program. He felt it was important to get the message out that “no prior programming experience is necessary” to enter the CMU computer science program. The image of a CS student as someone (usually male) who has played with computers since early childhood is widespread. This often discourages many otherwise talented students from applying to a computer science program." 4) "A Supportive Community: The Women@SCS Advisory Council: The Women@SCS Advisory Council was created in the fall of 1999 and has since met weekly during the academic year. Membership includes undergraduates representing all four years and graduate students representing the various departments within SCS*". 9

gritzko 17y ago
>> Admissions Office began giving more weight to non-academic factors, looking for applicants with leadership potential and a commitment to “give back to the community.” Oh, God! What is the plan? Train students in "leadership" and "networking", leave boring technical stuff to those nerds in India or China?

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

zandor 17y ago

My university used a rather simple bait and switch trick with the degree names and changed the name of power engineering to a more friendly energy and environmental engineering. It actually worked pretty well. There was a significant increase in female students and they didn't change to another degree later.

catch23 17y ago
Hm, interesting. Maybe computer science needs a new hip name to increase enrollment. We could call it "Autonomous Human Sociology".

forensic 17y ago

So they increased female students by... 1. Giving female students special benefits and privileges. 1.1. Access to Big Sister program. 1.2. Special female-only clubs. 1.3. Special favour in admissions. 1.4. Special favour in high school. 2. Stopped evaluating new students on ability in computer science (which is based, like anything else, on experience) and started evaluating them on extracurriculars and intangibles. Does this seem kind of fucked to anyone else? They basically threw merit out the window because they'd rather have diversity than talent. Are math programs going to start admitting people who have no experience or proven ability in math now, because those people do more charity work than math nerds? Are chemistry students going to be chosen for their leadership ability rather than scientific ability?

eb 17y ago
I don't think you understand how college admissions work. Students are generally accepted based on their overall academic record. Grades, SAT score, extracurriculars, etc. Students are not accepted to CS programs because they've written a lot of prior code. I'm sure most incoming chemistry students have not spent time inside a lab outside of their high school chemistry class. College is where you specialize in a particular field so students are accepted based on their overall aptitude and not experience in a specific subject.
- forensic 17y ago
  ... of course I understand how college admissions work. Do you assume that I am a total idiot or something? :) "the Admissions Office began giving more weight to non-academic factors, looking for applicants with leadership potential and a commitment to “give back to the community.” These broadened criteria also became important in awarding financial aid." They changed the weighting to emphasize intangibles such as charity and "leadership potential". "He felt it was important to get the message out that “no prior programming experience is necessary” to enter the CMU computer science program." They changed the weighting to de-emphasize experience - which is the #1 correlate to ability. "I'm sure most incoming chemistry students have not spent time inside a lab outside of their high school chemistry class." But if there was a student who spent time outside the lab, they would give that student special consideration because of proven ability and interest in the field. It just so happens that the majority of CS students are going to have experience outside the computer lab, because in this world everyone has their own computer. Most people don't have their own chemistry lab.

srn 17y ago

According to their research, women started out with much less confidence but by the junior year it has started to level out when the classes become more difficult for both genders. See section "Gap Between Perceived and Actual Ability" and "Confidence Gap Narrows" Also see "Geek Mythology: Lore about Being in CS" specifically "It is important to note that most of the CS students (both male and female) we interviewed feel they do not match the stereotype: their interests are varied (including sports, theater, poetry) and not isolated to computer science. " http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/gendergap/www/papers/si.. http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/gendergap/www/papers/si.... This paper expounds more on the view that a student must be absorbed in computers 24/7 and that women's perception is that they must be this way to succeed: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/gendergap/www/papers/an...but http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/gendergap/www/papers/an... men who are not like that still feel like they can be successful in computer science under "The Non-Hacker Male" from that paper. Based on this information, I believe the stereotypes are self perpetuating and breaking the feedback loop will help a lot. I ask that you personally help by keeping an open mind.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

superfly 17y ago

I post on this site under another name that is assumed male. Why? Because I am automatically voted down for stronger opinions, particularly as a female. Male nerds DO discriminate. That said, in real life, nerd culture has served me well. It does not serve me well in the group-think that is the internet. Regarding this article, I feel particularly qualified to write down my perspective since I started a comp sci program at a prestigious college in the mid-80's and was overwhelmed by the lack of support. I believe this was more than just a gender problem. I personally didn't grok programming until years later, when I took courses with female teachers. They somehow understood what I was missing in order to develop the abstract thinking necessary to succeed in creating working software. I didn't give up because I loved the subject matter, but it took a long long time to develop the skill set to understand the material. I had to learn how to think more the way my male friends thought. I had to focus on details that would later be less than useful to me but in order to get to the bigger picture I had a talent for, I had to "suffer" the pedantry of the male thought process. So many times I read a comp sci text or popular "how to" book written by a man, and I would get frustrated because, I believe, men tend to learn better by giving the small, inside detail BEFORE the big picture is developed. I recall many attempts at studying assembly language and giving up because moving one bit from register to another never made sense until I understood exactly how higher level data structures were composed. All the binary math and computer architecture was never going to get me there. I could do the individual problems but could never create a picture in my head of how these small pieces fit together. At some point it just clicked. Probably after reading some books that were more appropriate for me. No teacher was ever able to communicate ideas at that level. If you don't give me the grander scheme, the WHY, listening to the how doesn't stick. I had a tested talent for spoken languages. I had decent math scores. I just didn't get the male patterns of thought. Someone like me is better off learning say, C#, then the .NET CLR, then the assembly language beneath. My career went backwards, too. I started out in high level languages, then I descended into more and more detail level comp sci until the present--I am now a C++ developer on a huge huge code base that encompasses algorithms and real computer science. My belief is that the top-notch programmers I now work with (I mean, these people were pioneers and I am surrounded by some that literally wrote the book) are mostly from educational backgrounds where they had to learn computer architecture FIRST. A good example of how the above ideas manifest themselves: my male colleagues don't have to Google say, the use of ftell/fseek/fgetpos. I do. Every single time. I simple don't remember. If you sat me down in a job interview and asked to apply these to say, finding a char in a string, I would write down broken code. But I have personally written several programs that utilize these functions in various ways. You would think me a complete idiot. While my male counterparts have this sort of detail, their weakness and majority of time is spent on understanding the main goal in the first place. They ask more questions about why we are taking a certain approach (these are GOOD questions, don't get me wrong), whereas I have to spend more time actually getting syntax issues right. Not much more, but I will never be the person who just sits down and starts coding and only has to hit the compile button once or twice for it to work. By the time the guys comprehend the why, I already have a basic specification in my head. This talent means I "get things done" well enough for management, but my colleagues would collectively say "she's decent but not detail-minded." Why? I might forget a detail about where to put a file or leave out a case/condition that I didn't think of because I don't usually agonize over all the possible points of failure. My approach assumes we WILL leave out a case and I write code that leaves open the possibility to modify it easily. Reading my code, there is never any question about what to modify to make it work. I like being this person, because while my stuff breaks just like everyone else's, I can fix my stuff faster than anyone else can fix theirs.

merciless 17y ago

Regarding this article, I feel particularly qualified to write down my perspective since I started a comp sci program at a prestigious college in the mid-80's and was overwhelmed by the lack of support. I believe this was more than just a gender problem. I personally didn't grok programming until years later, when I took courses with female teachers. They somehow understood what I was missing in order to develop the abstract thinking necessary to succeed in creating working software. I didn't give up because I loved the subject matter, but it took a long long time to develop the skill set to understand the material. I had to learn how to think more the way my male friends thought. I had to focus on details that would later be less than useful to me but in order to get to the bigger picture I had a talent for, I had to "suffer" the pedantry of the male thought process. So many times I read a comp sci text or popular "how to" book written by a man, and I would get frustrated because, I believe, men tend to learn better by giving the small, inside detail BEFORE the big picture is developed. I recall many attempts at studying assembly language and giving up because moving one bit from register to another never made sense until I understood exactly how higher level data structures were composed. All the binary math and computer architecture was never going to get me there. I could do the individual problems but could never create a picture in my head of how these small pieces fit together. At some point it just clicked. Probably after reading some books that were more appropriate for me. No teacher was ever able to communicate ideas at that level. If you don't give me the grander scheme, the WHY, listening to the how doesn't stick. I had a tested talent for spoken languages. I had decent math scores. I just didn't get the male patterns of thought. Someone like me is better off learning say, C#, then the .NET CLR, then the assembly language beneath. My career went backwards, too. I started out in high level languages, then I descended into more and more detail level comp sci until the present--I am now a C++ developer on a huge huge code base that encompasses algorithms and real computer science. My belief is that the top-notch programmers I now work with (I mean, these people were pioneers and I am surrounded by some that literally wrote the book) are mostly from educational backgrounds where they had to learn computer architecture FIRST. A good example of how the above ideas manifest themselves: my male colleagues don't have to Google say, the use of ftell/fseek/fgetpos. I do. Every single time. I simple don't remember. If you sat me down in a job interview and asked to apply these to say, finding a char in a string, I would write down broken code. But I have personally written several programs that utilize these functions in various ways. You would think me a complete idiot. While my male counterparts have this sort of detail, their weakness and majority of time is spent on understanding the main goal in the first place. They ask more questions about why we are taking a certain approach (these are GOOD questions, don't get me wrong), whereas I have to spend more time actually getting syntax issues right. Not much more, but I will never be the person who just sits down and starts coding and only has to hit the compile button once or twice for it to work. By the time the guys comprehend the why, I already have a basic specification in my head. This talent means I "get things done" well enough for management, but my colleagues would collectively say "she's decent but not detail-minded." Why? I might forget a detail about where to put a file or leave out a case/condition that I didn't think of because I don't usually agonize over all the possible points of failure. My approach assumes we WILL leave out a case and I write code that leaves open the possibility to modify it easily. Reading my code, there is never any question about what to modify to make it work. I like being this person, because while my stuff breaks just like everyone else's, I can fix my stuff faster than anyone else can fix theirs.

anamax 17y ago

The author says that retention is important but I didn't see anything about either retention or graduation rates. If the "extra" women aren't graduating at a reasonable rate, did admitting them do them any good? Or, is that the wrong question? Looking at the numbers, we see a change from 89 men and 7 women (96 total) to 83 men and 49 women (132 total) enrolled. Looking at admission rates shows us how it was done. The women's admission rates were basically unchanged, from 34% to 36%, so the increase in women admitted and enrolled is due almost entirely to the increase in applications by women. At the same time, the overall admission rates dropped from 26% to 12%. Since the population has only two components, men and women, and the rates for women were unchanged means that the admission rates for men dropped significantly. I wonder what relationship the admissions criteria have to success in the program. However, the numbers suggest another question. What about the guys who were displaced by women? (There were at least 6 and no men got any of the "expansion" slots.) They get the same benefits that the rest of us get from more women in CMU CS, but they "paid" more than the rest of us. ("But for" the decision to admit women on a different scale, they would have gotten in.) Shouldn't they be compensated?

ephedra 17y ago