How CMU Increased the Proportion of Women in Computer Science (2013)

I have no idea what they were doing - the point is that a Facebook account indicates the opportunity to use the internet. There has literally never been more information/tools available to potential programmers than there is today - free online coding schools, tutorials, stackoverflow, wikipedia, anything you want. Not to mention free compilers - when I was a kid, Borland C++ cost money.

I mention Facebook somewhat sarcastically because it's a service with no shortage of women. If women can be on Facebook, they can also be on Github if they choose to be.

There was never an easier time to learn programming, for free, while sitting at home, without even putting on pants, than today.

The secret of the patriarchy: http://bit.ly/w0iWlY

Not lowering the bar, changing the metrics and possibly even raising the bar.

I had some conversations with a couple professors there before I graduated in the mid-1990s, they saw it as a two fold problem. The geek culture makes it hard for anyone not within it regardless of gender, second they saw that MIT, Stanford, and some other top schools had more alumni donations and also tended to have more technology startups and such closely related to the school which also sort of affected the school's income but also affected future placement of current students which has a pretty large impact on getting the best students in the future. The thought at the time was that the geek culture was just bad for the school, period, they produced a lot of talented engineers but maybe not a lot of really successful people in the bigger picture.

I don't remember the exact numbers but I want to say something like over 50% of the SCS students switch majors out of SCS or left CMU, maybe even more. I want to say 250 students were pre-SCS and something like 50 graduated, but 250 seems way too high though. I can also say that I was a mid-tier geek, I had some experience and some chops but there were dudes who had been paid programmers when they started as freshmen, it was at times intimidating. I do personally know a half dozen folks that changed majors because they decided they couldn't hack it before things really got difficult; good smart people. It can be a very intense pressure cooker, say 50% leave SCS, of the 50% that stay, maybe 90% have had a fair amount of experience and then the 10% that don't struggle with tools and just basic things before they can even do the work. Life's not always fair but that environment was definitely self shaping. I have no doubt in my mind that some of the ones that switched majors could have made it and were maybe a bit psyched out.

When I heard this, in a way I felt a sense of pride, I had finished the "Real CMU" before it got watered down. I also felt a bit of loss, like I had spent the time and money to get their name on my resume and they were going to water its value down. As I've matured, started a family, etc.. I've grown to believe that CMU had (maybe still has) a fairly unhealthy emotional culture about it, I learned a lot, and I really don't have a lot of bad things to say about the place but I meet a bunch of damaged people there and some that might not be damaged so much as just not healthy emotionally. I'm not a mental health expert though, it's just my feeling, there are also some great people I meet there too. I'm in far more contact with people not of SCS though. I've worked at a number of startups, including a couple that were very much on the brink of death and I don't know that I've ever encountered any professional stress close to some of the times at CMU.

> I think it is more likely that their outreach programs (through CS AP teacher training etc.) that encouraged the best and brightest women to apply were successful, so that the pool of women were significantly more qualified.

That is entirely implausible. Those straws are miles away, dude.

That could perhaps explain a 20% difference, not a 330% difference.

I've noticed it primarily in SF and Seattle. I've seen it to a limited extent in Philadelphia, but it's been my observation that most tech jobs on the East Coast have sufficiently strict dress codes to make lifestyles/hobbies relatively non-apparent at first glance. (the limited extent that I witnessed it in Philadelphia was at a startup that I interviewed with. One of my "geek" friends warned me that the startup was filled with "brogrammers").

Although the term "brogrammer" was not invented yet, I also witnessed it in university on the East Coast, where CS kids in fraternities were frequently given a hard time by other CS students.

It definitely is "geeks" doing most of the name calling, though the twitter/SJW sphere has certainly adopted and perpetuated it as well.