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

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

#11

Post by forensic »

tigerthink wrote: post #9
barry-cotter wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>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?

Considering it's based on a survey of perception... it's bullshit

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

#12

Post by gritzko »

mahmud wrote: post #6

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/ Their approach is multi-pronged and involved: 1) Meticulous study of male and female CS students' attitudes towards compute…

>> 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?

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

#13

Post by forensic »

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?

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

#14

Post by spamizbad »

CrLf wrote: post #10
tigerthink wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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?

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.

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.

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

#15

Post by eb »

forensic wrote: post #13

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.…

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.

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

#16

Post by catch23 »

zandor wrote: post #8

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.

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

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

#17

Post by forensic »

eb wrote: post #15
forensic wrote: post #13

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.…

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 part…

... 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.

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

#18

Post by 3pt14159 »

spamizbad wrote: post #14
CrLf wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

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

#19

Post by staticshock »

forensic wrote: post #17
eb wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 part…

... 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 ch…

Experience does correlate strongly with current ability, but it correlates much more weakly with potential ability.

There's no college out there that requires "5 years prior job experience", because the relationship between college and student is very different than between employer and employee. Employers look for current ability. Colleges, on the other hand, look for future ability, the indicators of which are significantly more speculative.

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

#20

Post by yummyfajitas »

forensic wrote: post #13

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.…

Incidentally, this scheme will only work at an elite college. Giving preferences in admission (as of 2000, acceptance rates are 39% to 9% for women and men respectively) will tend to result in less qualified students. But if you are a top school, it probably won't matter -- there are more top applicants than slots.

Though even at CMU, watering down the applicants seems to be an issue. Women leave CS at a much higher rate than men.

So all this really does is increase the number of women at CMU. It doesn't increase the number of women in CS, since the women CMU admits might have just gone to Rutgers instead.

Numbers taken from the extended article:

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~lblum/PAPERS/women_in_computer_scienc...

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