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Women Outnumber Men For The First Time In Berkeley’s Intro To Computer Science

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Re: Women Outnumber Men For The First Time In Berkeley’s Intro To Computer Science

#51

Post by clarky07 »

presidentender wrote: post #36
clarky07 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At our school, by the time you reached 2nd year most everyone disappeared, male and female. Fall semester sophomore year was about 25% of fall semester freshmen.

As it turns out, making video games has little to do with playing them.

Haha right. Almost everyone flushed out in CS1.

"I want to make games!" to "This shit is hard, I'm gonna get a business degree."

As it happens when you have projects that take about 4x (or more) the amount of time as your friends majors that takes a toll. People would rather be partying than writing code. Maybe our CS1 was a bit too hard (we've had many discussions with the profs about this and the attrition rate and what to do about it), but everyone who finished freshmen year graduated in our class. It prepared us well, but it was too hard for most.

Re: Women Outnumber Men For The First Time In Berkeley’s Intro To Computer Science

#52

Post by auctiontheory »

paulwithap wrote: post #19

What is up with the obsession to get women coding? Why does it matter? You don't see anything like this in female-dominated professions.

You don't see anything like this in female-dominated professions.

You absolutely do. K-8 teaching and psychotherapy come to mind. Anecdotally, the ratios are the inverse of what we see in tech. Men are in huge demand.

Re: Women Outnumber Men For The First Time In Berkeley’s Intro To Computer Science

#53

Post by jack-r-abbit »

ry0ohki wrote: post #48
jack-r-abbit wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think part of the "problem" is that you don't hear about a couple nurses working on a new "nursing product" (sorry.. not sure what the nursing equivalent of "WhatsApp" is) and then getting bought out for $19Billion nearly as often as you do with engineers. I think some careers are more stable and pay more on average than computer jobs but they lack the (possibly over optimistic) possibility to get a big exit check.

What you are describing is starting a business not learning computer science. Women could start a health care company, or at-home nursing, etc... and get bought for a billion something (in theory).

True.. but you gotta learn computer science (or coding or something along those lines) if you're going to start the next "WhatsApp" business. I'm not saying that it doesn't happen in other fields. But I think you know it doesn't happen nearly as often or you would not have ended your comment with in theory. Just about anything could happen... in theory.

Re: Women Outnumber Men For The First Time In Berkeley’s Intro To Computer Science

#54

Post by The_Double »

paulwithap wrote: post #19

What is up with the obsession to get women coding? Why does it matter? You don't see anything like this in female-dominated professions.

I for one would like more women in my CS classes. Right now the ratio is about 1:20, it fucks with your perspective on the world.

Re: Women Outnumber Men For The First Time In Berkeley’s Intro To Computer Science

#55

Post by okasaki »

katrillion wrote: post #42
geebee wrote: post #18

I recently read the "top jobs" on the us news and world report website. http://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/rankings/the-100-b... Computer jobs were well represented, but so were health sciences. Here's the full list 1. software developer - san jose - 116K (93k natl avg) 2. computer systems analyst - (couldn’t find it in SF, best anywhere was $116k in bridgeport, 84k nation avg) 3. dentist - couldn’t find SF, c…

This is a strange comparison, what does software have to do with nursing? What about all of the under-employed women who are not interested in healthcare or law? As a female developer who is actively involved in helping women learn more about tech career paths, I would never presume to lure someone who felt called to nursing away from that field. I am more interested in reaching women stuck in dead-end administrative…

Just the women? Are there no men in that condition or do you suffer from some personality disorder?

Re: Women Outnumber Men For The First Time In Berkeley’s Intro To Computer Science

#56

Post by omegaham »

budde wrote: post #16
LordKano wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope that you told them 'no' or charged them appropriately for tutoring.

Yes, because helping people is just the worst.

There's a difference between helping someone with the class and walking them through their assignments, line by line. The former is great; the latter is dishonest.

I tutor coworkers in exchange for food and beer. My policy for math and CS is this - if you give me an example, I will walk you through the example with as much detail as you want, but I will not do anything other than proofread your assignments after they've been created.

Good: Student has an assignment to do quicksort on an array of integers. He has difficulty with array syntax and asks me to walk him through basic array operations. He then has difficulty grasping what exactly quicksort is doing and asks me to walk him through a quicksort operation by hand. After this, he feels kind of confident and tries making a function. It doesn't work, and he can't find the problem, so he asks me to help debug the program.

Bad: "Oh man, I don't get this quicksort stuff at all. Can you, like, help me?"

(Cue frustrating half hour where the person shows that he barely grasps the concept of a variable and doesn't give a fuck about the class)

"Uh, I gotta turn this in at 11:59 tonight. I need this now."

The person who pulled the latter with me was male. I said "no" and watched him fail the class.

Re: Women Outnumber Men For The First Time In Berkeley’s Intro To Computer Science

#57

Post by mcphilip »

paulwithap wrote: post #19

What is up with the obsession to get women coding? Why does it matter? You don't see anything like this in female-dominated professions.

Anecdotal evidence: I started off in nursing school with an intent to get a master's before ultimately finishing with CS. The nursing school I went to was well respected and made great efforts to make male students feel 'normal' in the female dominated area. They didn't aggressively recruit males at that point, but we were seen as valuable and worth including.

I'd like to think that females could have a similar experience in CS degrees at some point.

Re: Women Outnumber Men For The First Time In Berkeley’s Intro To Computer Science

#58

Post by DanBC »

okasaki wrote: post #55
katrillion wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a strange comparison, what does software have to do with nursing? What about all of the under-employed women who are not interested in healthcare or law? As a female developer who is actively involved in helping women learn more about tech career paths, I would never presume to lure someone who felt called to nursing away from that field. I am more interested in reaching women stuck in dead-end administrative…

Just the women? Are there no men in that condition or do you suffer from some personality disorder?

"Personality disorder" is part of a set of diagnoses in DSM and ICD. They're controversial diagnoses and people throwing the term around as an attack is stigmatising and hateful.

Re: Women Outnumber Men For The First Time In Berkeley’s Intro To Computer Science

#59

Post by katrillion »

okasaki wrote: post #55
katrillion wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a strange comparison, what does software have to do with nursing? What about all of the under-employed women who are not interested in healthcare or law? As a female developer who is actively involved in helping women learn more about tech career paths, I would never presume to lure someone who felt called to nursing away from that field. I am more interested in reaching women stuck in dead-end administrative…

Just the women? Are there no men in that condition or do you suffer from some personality disorder?

I have met one man who was interested in learning to code and looking for help getting started, but most of the folks I've met in that position have been women.

Re: Women Outnumber Men For The First Time In Berkeley’s Intro To Computer Science

#60

Post by marquis »

jack-r-abbit wrote: post #45
marquis wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not maled so I google 'male advocacy' and picked what came up first. Want some equivalent sources on women? I can pick a few hundred off the top of my head. As a feminist I completely support such groups for men also in careers where women are over-representing.

I don't want to speak for the paulwithap, but it seems we're talking about the disproportionate amount of effort to get men into in careers where women are over-representing compared to the other way around. And also the disproportionate amount of criticism we give to members in that field when they don't. I'm all for anyone doing what ever job they feel like doing as long as they have the skills to do it. I don't ev…

My uncle lost his job recently as a factory worker and is retraining at the age of 50 to be an nurse aide. He wishes he'd trained as nurse but 30 years ago it was near impossible. Not every man wants to be a brain surgeon.

And teachers? That has to be the MOST important group where we should absolutely have equal representation.

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