So far, I've taken my smashing-planets introduction to Python to two groups of college students: the Wright State chapter of ACM and an OO programming class at University of Dayton. It's been lots of fun. I appreciate the chance to show young people something I really love, something I think can make their computer work more productive and more fun. My thanks to the folks who decided to invite me and the students who gave me their attention.
But. If I don't see a woman student in computer science soon - just, for crying out loud, one woman student - I am going to... I don't know. I'm going to have to research "how to go berserk".
What's going on in this country? I think I'd see better gender balance in a classroom in Iran.
3 comments:
Very cool that you're doing those kinds of presentations to students. It seems that so many schools take a few years to address new technologies in class.
I've noticed fewer females coming out of college looking for tech jobs every time we interview a new batch. Not sure why. I remember a push to get girls interested in math and science but don't see any results yet.
Actually I recently read an article about higher education in the middle east. The gist was that over there, men are supposed to work rather than go to school. The result is that graduate students are mostly women. Hence, you'd find plenty of smurfettes, but no (male) smurfs in Iran.
When I graduated, I was the only female in an 8 person program. I was commonly the only female in most of my engineering courses.
When I was in ACM in college, there were a few more females, but we were definitely outnumbered.
And the trend isn't looking any better, unfortunately. I just read the other day that studies are seeing fewer women going into computer science.
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