I know I belong in computer science, but sometimes I wonder.
blog.carolynworks.com
I know I belong in computer science, but sometimes I wonder.
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Re: I know I belong in computer science, but sometimes I wonder.
#2This has nothing to do with women in tech. It has to do with specialization vs. generalist.
The image of the ultimate hacker assumes a specialist. 100% focused on their expertise. It could lead to a great coder. but a company will also need someone with a decent technical background who can also relate to the end-user for instance, or align more than one sentence when a customer calls. That would be more a generalist.
It's ok not to want to be a domain expert.
Re: I know I belong in computer science, but sometimes I wonder.
#3In programming most of the variance in ability is explained by intelligence and not effort. You can take, for example, some non-CS student, teach them programming by saying "look, here's how you do it", and if they're the right student, they'll instantly be better than 90% of CS students. (And if they're not, they won't be. Oh well.) A lot of nerdlingtons who "know" programming and argue about Java going into their freshman year end up doing poorly.
So I would recommend taking it easy. It makes sense to do what you're interested in, and much of that is not night programming, then so be it.
Re: I know I belong in computer science, but sometimes I wonder.
#4This betrays a bit of a self-confidence issue on the part of the author, as does http://blog.carolynworks.com/?p=537 (more revealingly). It also plays like a specific issue trying to be painted into a gender issue, which it really isn't.
> “Who knows what lexical analysis is? No one? What, don’t you guys do this constantly in your spare time? All right, I’ll show you …”
If I may, I believe that the professor was connecting lexical analysis with what humans do on a second-by-second basis -- that is, parsing and interpreting speech from other human beings. Your brain is lexing all of the time, and I believe that's what the professor might have meant -- that was the first thing I thought, anyway. I'd drop a class like a bad habit if the professor quipped about me knowing something before he taught me (I'm not paying for self-study, pal).
Re: I know I belong in computer science, but sometimes I wonder.
#5This has nothing to do with women in tech. It has to do with specialization vs. generalist. The image of the ultimate hacker assumes a specialist. 100% focused on their expertise. It could lead to a great coder. but a company will also need someone with a decent technical background who can also relate to the end-user for instance, or align more than one sentence when a customer calls. That would be more a generalist…
I agree, it's not a roadblock specifically for women. I did software engineering (not cs) but the 4 year course is basically strictly engineering (with a large overlap with doing cs as science). There's no scope for electives. You want that particular degree, that's the road you have to travel.
There are other options, like CS could be done as an arts degree which would give you more scope to choose other electives, and presumably socialise with people who do likewise.
The year I did eng, there were a lot of women in the class. Other years, not so much.
Re: I know I belong in computer science, but sometimes I wonder.
#6This betrays a bit of a self-confidence issue on the part of the author, as does http://blog.carolynworks.com/?p=537 (more revealingly). It also plays like a specific issue trying to be painted into a gender issue, which it really isn't. > “Who knows what lexical analysis is? No one? What, don’t you guys do this constantly in your spare time? All right, I’ll show you …” If I may, I believe that the professor was conn…
Self-confidence issue? Yeah, that's the point of the article. She's saying, "I doubt myself in this area, but I am confident about these other things, and it's not just me, so I think I'll be okay."
Re: I know I belong in computer science, but sometimes I wonder.
#7In programming most of the variance in ability is explained by intelligence and not effort. You can take, for example, some non-CS student, teach them programming by saying "look, here's how you do it", and if they're the right student, they'll instantly be better than 90% of CS students. (And if they're not, they won't be. Oh well.) A lot of nerdlingtons who "know" programming and argue about Java going into their f…
I doubt they'll "instantly" be better than 90% of CS students, but if they're interested, they'll ultimately put in more time by themselves to learn how to program.
I remember that I was learning to program just as I was entering high school. I fell in love with programming instantly, but it does not mean I didn't spend hours upon hours debugging my first few programs to see what went wrong. But I didn't have anyone to guide me, so all my programs were imperative styled, not OOP. After taking my first computer science course in high school, my classmates thought of me as a programming genius (which I am not) since I was able to write programs faster than anybody else in my class. It's a lot easier to understand OOP when you've been programming for 1-2 years rather than 2-3 months.
That's why I'd say that a lot of programming ability is effort, not intelligence. Except for non-C family programmers, I've never met anyone who didn't have the "4-hour-debugging-session-only-to-find-it-was-a-missing-semicolin" experience when they were beginning programming.
Re: I know I belong in computer science, but sometimes I wonder.
#8In programming most of the variance in ability is explained by intelligence and not effort. You can take, for example, some non-CS student, teach them programming by saying "look, here's how you do it", and if they're the right student, they'll instantly be better than 90% of CS students. (And if they're not, they won't be. Oh well.) A lot of nerdlingtons who "know" programming and argue about Java going into their f…
Doesn't this go against the 10,000 hours thing? Sure, taking someone who is smarter and has more experience than other students and putting them in front of a computer will yield these results. However, someone who is solely smarter and does not normally program will not likely produce good code. Expertise is much more about practice than raw ability. Most of the really good programmers out there are really good because they're both smart and well versed, not just smart.
Re: I know I belong in computer science, but sometimes I wonder.
#9Think about how many students were in your freshman level courses. Now think about how many students are in your senior level courses. Add a fudge factor for the larger dispersion in senior level courses if you like, but don't forget seniors are also taking more of the courses per semester as well.
The size difference is basically the number of people who dropped out. A few may have dropped college altogether but many have migrated to another major, because they too doubted they were in the right major until they felt they had to take action. (Or in some cases had it forced on them by failing grades.) This is not a unique experience.
Presumably this is posted here because of the gender issue raised in the post, but given how non-unique this experience is I don't see that the gender angle adds anything. Scratch a few sentences out and any number of juniors could post this. This is not "woman doubt", it's just doubt, and the doubt does not admit of "woman solutions", it's just the same "finish the degree" solution everyone else has. I take the time to say this because I actually think adding the gender idea into this is a little cognitively dangerous; incorrect identification of the problem leads to incorrect identification of the solutions. (As every engineer comes to learn instinctively after a few years under their belt.) Those who are certain they are in the right major are the unusual ones, regardless of gender and from what I saw in college, pretty much regardless of major.
Re: I know I belong in computer science, but sometimes I wonder.
#10I don't understand why you are portraying concentrated education vs liberal arts education as a women's issue. I'm a male who also earned a CS degree at a liberal arts school, and I had similar struggles in trying to balance my technical workload alongside literature and politics.