CS Programs Changing to Attract Women Students

Magnifico writes "The New York times is running an article about a push by American universities to actively recruit women into Computer Science courses. The story, 'Computer Science Takes Steps to Bring Women to the Fold', explains that the number of women in CS is shrinking: 'Women received about 38 percent of the computer science bachelor's degrees awarded in the United States in 1985, the peak year, but in 2003, the figure was only about 28 percent, according to the National Science Foundation.' One of the largest barriers to recruiting women to the field is the nerd factor. To attract women students to the CS field, 'Moving emphasis away from programming proficiency was a key to the success of programs Dr. Blum and her colleagues at Carnegie Mellon instituted to draw more women into computer science.' Changes at CMU increased women students in the CS program from 8 percent to nearly 40 percent."

Comments

Great for the gene pool

[grub]

1) Geek woman get CS degrees & jobs.
2) Geek woman meets geek man.
3) ???
4) Aspergers!!!

Re:Great for the gene pool

[bigtomrodney]

Its funny you should mention geeks meeting up. Is that the best reason to actively recruit women?
What I'm trying to say is if women don't want to enroll, so be it. Why force this 'positive discrimination'? Now if it was said that there was an overall drop in students enrolling then I would understand some concern but I just don't understand why we should force equality.

Personally I have no interest in signing up for a degree in Fashion Design. Some men may and more power to them but if there are more women signing up than men I don't think they should spend time or money trying to make fashion design more butch.

Re:Great for the gene pool

[Moofie]

Are you using the Chewbacca Defense? That does not make sense!

Re:Great for the gene pool

[Chris Burke]

What I'm trying to say is if women don't want to enroll, so be it. Why force this 'positive discrimination'?

Because of the negative discrimination that is artificially limiting the number of women in the field in the first place. Discrimination in the form of men assuming that women "don't want to enroll", simply because they're women and thus less interested in our manly computer engineering/sciences.

Look at this thread. I guarantee (in part because a lot has already shown up) that you'll see men in computer fields stating as fact that women don't really want to be in computer science. You'll see them state as fact that women aren't as good in computers as men. That it's an obvious "natural difference" that means that there really shouldn't be as many women in CS, only those rare few that have what it takes to match up with the men, and thus recruiting more is futile or even counter-productive. And then they'll say that all this proves that there isn't any discrimination against women in CS. Despite the fact that the real reason there are few women in CS -- men in the field discriminating against women -- is put blatantly before them every time they look in the mirror.

It's the same thing that went on in the 70s and 80s with women in the fields of law, business, and medicine. Fields dominated by men, and those men said that clearly women neither wanted nor were capable of succeeding in these fields, and hence would continue to be minorities. Well time passed and the women proved both that they wanted to and that they could, and you'd look like an archaic dinosaur with severe damage to the tact centers of the brain if you said otherwise. Computers, a field that has been dominated by a particularly anti-social breed of men even more prone to insulation than lawyers or MBAS, is the next stop. Encouraging women, letting them know that there are people in the field who welcome them, that the ones telling them what they want to do with their own lives are dinosaurs on the way out, that's helpful.

It may be that once we have gotten rid of all the sex discrimination in the computer field that there will still be fewer women in the field. It may be that there is in fact natural tendency that affects the ratio of men vs women. There's nothing wrong with that. The problem is that if you think that we are at that point, today, where sex discrimination doesn't exist? Then you're 1) male and 2) delusional.

Re:Great for the gene pool

[hobbesmaster]

The real question is why are all the women in engineering (at my school) signing up for Civil, Mechanical and Chemical (more women than men in CME from what I can tell) instead of Electrical, Computer and CS? (CS is in the College of Engineering here)

If I had to pull numbers out of thin air, I'd say that approximately 1/3 of MEs and around 1/2 of CEs are female. This compares with 1/20 or so in EE and maybe 1/10 to 1/5 in CS. (again, at my school - and I may be wrong on the CE/ME numbers)

Why? I bet the women learning about building bridges are capable of learning control theory or algorithms if they were interested - why aren't they interested?

Of course, most engineers on /. will take exception to the lumping in of CS with all the engineering disciplines (ie, ones that you can be a PE in), I generally do as well, but I think its interesting because it takes the same "kind" of person to declare any one of these majors - you have to like math, and thats the same for a real CS curriculum.

Re:Great for the gene pool

[Doctor Faustus]

Did you read the article? It was about changing computer science to be what they think women want. That strikes me as far more stereotyping than letting the field be what it is.

Yes, there can be discrimination, and yes it should be opposed. That's not what this is about.

Re:Great for the gene pool

[MjrTom]

Yeah, You know I initially saw the headline here as "CS Students Changing Programs to Attract Women."

Oh well.

Re:Great for the gene pool

[nacturation]

Normally I'd agree with you, but look at the summary "Moving emphasis away from programming proficiency was a key..." How is this different from attracting women to become math majors by moving emphasis away from being able to do math problems?

Re:Great for the gene pool

[Chris Burke]

Yeah I read the article, and I don't know where you're getting that. I see them de-emphasizing programming experience for acceptance to the program, and I see them talking more about uses and applications for computers than just the programming of them. No mention of actually changing the curriculum. Maybe adjusting teaching styles, but what's wrong with that? The difference between what these people think women want and the men I described in my post thinking they know what women want is that the people at CMU actually talked to women to get an idea of what they wanted, and have shown success as a result.

Re:Great for the gene pool

[Shadowlore]

Did you read the article? It was about changing computer science to be what they think women want.

And guess what, they say it worked! Sounds rather scientific ...

Theory:
    Women do not enroll in CS because they are not interested in it.

Test method:
    Change CS to mean/teach what you believe women want to learn, observe results.

So you change it and get dramatic results that indicate you were right. Conclusive proof it is not, but it's damned good evidence that you may be right.

Our culture is suffering from a sever case of MPD. We claim that diversity - that enjoying and celebrating the differences between different races/nationalities/cultures/sexes - is a good thing, but then are not allowed to even contemplate that there ARE differences. It is shown through many studies over many decades that the brains of men and women are wired differently. Not inherently better or worse, just different. In some cases the differences will give one a bias toward things or an advantage, but it is not universal.

There is nothing wrong with women not wanting to be programmers. People whining about women not being as common in the field as men are pretty much either:

1) Men looking to pick up on women, so they want more around without the effort of looking outside their little realm
2) People looking to absolve themselves for some perceived or actual social crime, or looking to make themselves "look better/compassionate/caring" by "fighting for the little guy"

A prior poster got it spot on. We don't see organizations saying that men are not represented well enough in fields that women dominate, or fields such as fashion design, hairdressing, etc..

It's got nothing to do with "being macho" or "manly'. Seriously, it's amazing that someone would post to slashdot (the grandparent to this post) that programming and CS are "manly sciences". Sure, tell that to the jocks bashing the nerds in high school. Yes, men and women are different. Get over it and quit trying to make us all the same. It is damaging to everyone. The human race are not Borg drones. We are each different with our advantages and disadvantages. This is true between races, cultures, nationalities, and pretty much any other group you can arrive at.

Nerd factor?

[onion2k]

One of the largest barriers to recruiting women to the field is the nerd factor.

If someone, male or female, is put off entering a particular study path because they're concerned about how other people will view them then they simply aren't passionate enough about it. Hell, they're not even interested in it. They're better off leaving the place open to someone a little less vacuous.

Maybe it's just me, but I see no reason why people need to be recruited into compsci. There's plenty of interest in it already. Should there be more men going to beauty school just to balance out the demographics a bit?

Let people decide what they want to do and stuff the perceived lack of equality.

Re:Nerd factor?

[richdun]

Should there be more men going to beauty school just to balance out the demographics a bit?

But, in grade school, teacher said everyone is equal, so shouldn't there be equal numbers of everyone in everything?

Chalk this one up to another "politically correct" falsehood. People aren't equal - don't keep someone from doing something they like, but don't change an entire system of educational thought simply because there isn't a 1:1 ratio in all categories. Do change it, however, because it doesn't work, or because some in the field do a poor job educating real thinkers and instead churn out platform-addicted code junkies.

Re:Nerd factor?

[freemywrld]

Maybe it's just me, but I see no reason why people need to be recruited into compsci.

I agree. I am woman in the IT field, and am very passionate about it. I have a degree in Biology -it turns out I am also passionate about science. I understand that universities care about demographics across programs, but you rarely hear about programs trying to attract more men for Women's Studies, do you? Anyway, my main point is, attracting women to CS can be all fine and good, but what I would really like to see is a job market that is more gender balanced. There still exists a school of thought that women are less suited to IT. More women with CS degrees may help this some, but in the end, not everyone who is interested in IT work necessarily gets a CS degree.

Re:Nerd factor?

[cultrhetor]

What does equality as in ability have to do with equality as in quantity? Absolutely nothing: try again.

Re:Nerd factor?

[Omnifarious]

I've been on the interviewer side of the table more than once when a woman showed up to be interviewed. In general, the reaction (not in front of her of course) has been to be flabbergasted and pleased that we might actually end up with a girl who was working in the tech side of the business.

We did apply the same standards of hiring both (yes, I said both, it only happened twice, and both times the girl was Asian) times and she made it. Once just scraping by (she didn't care a lot about quality and took criticism very poorly, but she did know how to program fairly well) and the other doing pretty well.

I find this rather depressing. When I worked at Amazon, the only women who were ever hired as programmers were from Asia (most from India). There is some strong cultural force at work here that discourages women from becoming programmers.

I wish I understand what it is that convinces US born women to not become programmers. I don't think it's a harassment issue. That's not something I've especially noticed. Though, since I'm a guy, it's possible it just passed me by.

But, I haven't noticed the bias you speak of. As I said, the places where I've been an interviewer people were really happy that a woman was interviewing. And it wasn't because they wanted to hit on her either. :-)

Re:Nerd factor?

[Dog-Cow]

You don't see it reported on slashdot, but there is actually a push to get more men into nursing. This is not because of a perceived idea of gender-equality, though. It is because there are instances in nursing where men would be better. For example, the average man is stronger than the average woman, and that comes into play with moving patients, or even just moving equipment. Having more men around to do those things is useful. Also, there's the issue of modesty. Many male patients are uncomfortable with the idea of females examing certain portions of their anatomy.

Re:Nerd factor?

[frank_adrian314159]

There is some strong cultural force at work here that discourages women from becoming programmers.

Yes! It's called "higher pay" and it applies to fields of law, medicine, and business. With women generally being smarter and in other fields not needing to interact with as many social retardates, it is clear that there is a cultural imperative to discourage women from programming.

Or maybe it's nonsense like this or this coming from the IT world that keeps them out. Who knows?

Re:Nerd factor?

[kripkenstein]

Maybe it's just me, but I see no reason why people need to be recruited into compsci. There's plenty of interest in it already. Should there be more men going to beauty school just to balance out the demographics a bit?

From an idealistic point of view you are 100% right. Why should we care what the demographics are, if people are free to choose what they want? And why should we care more about CS than about beauty school? So, in theory, you are right. But in practice you are wrong, I am afraid.

Human beings do care about demographics. If you live in a country with red-haired and brown-haired people, and all the red-haired people do menial labor, whereas all the brown-haired people have cushy desk jobs with salaries 100x higher, you have a problem. Even if there is no discrimination, you still have a problem. People aren't rational creatures, they will perceive such a situation as discriminatory, and you will quickly have social unrest, and worse. Furthermore, such a situation also breeds some forms of discrimination - not intentional ones, but ones just as effective. Brown-haired people won't have the contacts to get into desk-job schools, and will probably feel quite odd even if they do get in. This is a self-perpetuating system, in other words. Yes, it might 'right' itself in time, but meanwhile you have, as I said, social unrest. It is just better, from a practical point of view, to nudge the system in the more balanced direction.

This is a realistic, not an idealistic point of view. In fact, it even violates some ethical decrees: nudging red-haired people into desk-job school means that some brown-haired people will not get in, who otherwise would have. This is not fair to them, no doubt. But no social policy is fair towards everyone. Helping red-haired people get into desk-job school is probably the fairest overall.

Re:Nerd factor?

[mrbooze]

But no reasonable people are expecting perfect 1:1 ratios. We're talking about a 1:2 ratio in a situation where there is no identified genetic reason one gender would dominate over another so much, and that ratio is not consistent in other countries. That leads to reasonably suspect that the reasons are cultural and can be improved. If they can be improved through reasonable attempts to recognize the needs and desires of different groups, there's no good reason not to. A diversity of backgrounds, both gender, ethnic, and class, are good for any team, as it provides more perspectives to look at a problem. That doesn't take the place of skill and competence, but if you can have skill and competence *and* diversity, that's a great place to be.

Re:Nerd factor?

[shalla]

I wish I understand what it is that convinces US born women to not become programmers. I don't think it's a harassment issue. That's not something I've especially noticed. Though, since I'm a guy, it's possible it just passed me by.

Actually, it's often a very subtle thing--not harassment, but a definite bias against women in certain fields. Most people don't even realize they're doing it. In high school, I had the best grades in my honors math and science classes and was willing to help classmates with questions. When awards time came at the end of the year, the math and science awards went to the guys I'd helped (and outscored), and I got the English and Social Studies awards. Looking at the years ahead of me and behind me, the same thing was true. The girls might be just as good as the guys, but the perception by the generation in charge was that the guys were better at math and science and the girls at languages and humanities.

If you listen carefully, it comes out in little things people say, and in the toys people buy children. Thank God my parents watched me play with all my brother's cool stuff and bought me building sets and used computer magazines (for the TI 99, baybee!) to help offset the insipid Barbies and tea sets I got almost exclusively from other people. (I mean, I support kids getting dolls and tea sets, too, but not JUST that.)

If you want an enlightening experience, go to a computer show with a woman that you know knows something about computers and see how many of the vendors there address her versus how many address you when speaking, regardless of who asked the question. I once had one vendor answer all my questions to my husband. At the end of the conversation, I pointed out that he'd overlooked me, and that was a poor way to treat a customer. He asked me what gave me that impression, as though I were overreacting. We actually had to explain that he was ending his sentences with "sir," which pretty obviously excluded me from the conversation. (Boy, was he embarrassed.) That's not unusual at computer shows. Heck, when we went car shopping, even car salespeople picked up more quickly that I was the one they wanted to focus on and talk to or they were going to lose the sale.

If you aren't with a woman, or if you aren't with a woman who is trying to ask questions and get an answer, you might never see these things, but added up over a lifetime, it's enough of a subtle deterrent to influence some women who are good at several different fields. Why go for one like comp sci when you can choose another one that is as lucrative and more accepting?

Just something to keep in mind as you go about your day. You might be surprised what you catch yourself thinking (we're all culturally brainwashed to some degree), or your coworker buying for his new daughter without a second thought... And that, of course, is ignoring the people who specifically raise their daughters to be wives and mothers and nothing else.

nerd factor

[Visaris]

Moving emphasis away from programming proficiency was a key to the success of programs Dr. Blum and her colleagues at Carnegie Mellon instituted to draw more women into computer science.

I realize that there is more to CS than programming, but I would be surprised if theoretical computer science, which is more math intensive, would be that much more appealing. . . . Any way you go, I don't see how to remove the nerd factor from CS.

Re:nerd factor

[Millennium]

Exactly. While programming is not the only aspect of computer science, it is easily the most important. De-emphasizing it amounts to lowering the bar, and that isn't acceptable in any field. Diversity is nice, but it's not worth compromising standards of excellence.

Surely there is a better way to attract women to CS. Surely the issue of women not being interested isn't just a "Programming is haaaaaaaard" thing; women are not Barbie dolls. If we assume that there's a genuine problem, then we need to be spending more effort figuring out why, rather than using this as a convenient excuse to lower the bar.

Re:nerd factor

[The_Wilschon]

Programming is to computer science what engineering is to physics. Programming isn't science, it is an application of science. You wouldn't say that engineering is the most important aspect of physics, and you wouldn't say that de-emphasizing the engineering aspects of physics amounts to lowering the bar. Rather, the opposite. Emphasizing the engineering aspects of physics amounts to lowering the bar in a physics program.

Really, the fields of programming and computer science ought to be separated. Most people studying computer science are doing so because they want to learn programming. Conflating the two means that people wanting to study computer science itself have a hard time finding a program which meets their desires. If de-emphasizing the programming aspects of computer science in a conflated program causes more women to enter and complete that program, then separating the two ought to achieve a similar effect, and would still provide a program for those who wish to learn computer engineering more than computer science.

Re:nerd factor

[Millennium]

Programming is to computer science what engineering is to physics.

I'd argue that it's more like what math is to physics (and to computer science).

Programming isn't science, it is an application of science.

It's also the means of expressing that science, which is ultimately why they're as inseparable as math and physics. Take away the ability to record knowledge and it dies.

You wouldn't say that engineering is the most important aspect of physics, and you wouldn't say that de-emphasizing the engineering aspects of physics amounts to lowering the bar.

No, but I might say these things if a school were to de-emphasize mathematics in its physics programs. In fact, this is why I made the Barbie reference in my previous post.

Re:nerd factor

[deanc]

I realize that there is more to CS than programming, but I would be surprised if theoretical computer science, which is more math intensive, would be that much more appealing

In my experience, women in computer science lean heavily towards theory, where they are over-represented compared to their numbers in CS departments overall. Men in graduate programs tend to heavily dominate the "systems" groups.

I always figured this was because boys grow up "playing with computers" and already have interest in programming, while equally-capable women get into computer science later and, with less already-established interest in programming, get excited about theory.

Re:nerd factor

[Frumious Wombat]

They're moving away from letting people into the program based upon their previous programming experience, which is different from moving the entire program.

On a second note, this is not a bad idea, as you've probably noticed that a good deal of software out there, while written by what appear to be otherwise skillful people, is virtually unusuable. Undocumented, hostile interface, brittle, difficult to modify/extend/repair, and otherwise apparently written by sociopaths on a caffeine hangover. What they're trying to overcome is a culture that has grown around a field that keeps people who are interested in the material, but not in the sociopathy, out.

You'll also notice the article points out that they're emphasizing the applications that computing is integral to, rather than computing for its own sake. Once again, there is a population, talented, but differently (or when talking about CSci programs, at all) socialized, who wish to do things using computing, and who don't wish to to spend their time on Linux-distro p*ng contests. This actually bodes well for many fields in which computing is applied, as we may be able to get better communication between (for example) chemists and comp-scis, yielding applications that allow us to do our work more efficiently, while giving an intellectual challenge and sense of accomplishments to the compscis, i.e. they built something and it's being used.

This attitude that everything is being dumbed-down to allow women in is the same one you hear in physics, medicine, or similar traditionally all-male fields, when what's really being requested is that a bunch of prima-donna alpha-males (and beta-males with delusions of alphacity) are being asked to grow personalities and interact a little more humanely with their colleagues who just want to do their work, and not compete for the gold-plated sphincter award. And yes, I have met women who compete in those fields under the old rules, and you guys aren't happy when you find out what a pair of brass sharp elbows look like from the other side.

Bad idea

[soft_guy]

I think dumbing the program down to attract women is ultimately a bad idea.

Re:Bad idea

[eln]

It's not only a bad idea, it's insulting. They think that dumbing down the programming component is necessary to attract women? What does that say about the women that are already in CS? Are they to be applauded for working so hard to overcome the inherent deficiencies of their sex? Are women in CS just talking dogs (no one cares if they're good at what they do, people are just amazed they can do it at all)?

If some people find CS too hard to do, then fine. Let them either do something else or, if they're passionate enough, work harder at it. Dumbing down the curriculum is not the answer to anything. The only thing this will accomplish will to put even more ill-qualified people out in the workforce and further accelerate the USA's decline in technological leadership.

Re:Bad idea

[Red Flayer]

They aren't dumbing down the program. RTFA.

Moving emphasis away from programming proficiency was a key to the success of programs Dr. Blum and her colleagues at Carnegie Mellon instituted to draw more women into computer science. At one time, she said, admission to the program depended on high overall achievement and programming experience. The criteria now, she said, are high overall achievement and broad interests, diverse perspectives and whether applicants seem to have potential to be future leaders.

They are talking about admissions criteria, in the context of high school computing backgrounds. Attracting talent that may or may not have extensive programming experience, rather than focusing just on the people who enter college with a lot of programming under their belt -- those people are overwhelmingly male.

Might they have some catching up to do? Sure. But at least they won't have bad programming habits to unlearn, which can be just as bad as inexperience.

Re:Bad idea

[Nightlily]

I agree it is insulting. I think programming is essential to a good computer science education. I think maybe the approach should be (and this would help all students) is show that writing code is just part of the process. I'm a programmer and yes I write a lot of code. However I read a lot of design specs, spend a lot time in design meetings, spend time talking to potential users, spend time talking to testers, debugging, etc...

The very idea that somehow I overcome some inherent deficiency to become a programmer is horrible.

For example, I was helping my parents clean out their basement. My parents kept all my report cards, progress reports, etc... I found a progress report from my junior high school programming teacher. The person commented that I was picking up programming faster than the other students and suggested my parents encourage me to go a computer camp or learn a more complex language. My parents dismissed the very idea of me being a programmer. There was no deficiency on my part.

Re:Bad idea

[nSignIfikaNt]

This is America. If you can't measure up to the standards then we lower the standards so no one's feelings get hurt.

Re:Bad idea

[Jtheletter]

They are talking about admissions criteria, in the context of high school computing backgrounds. Attracting talent that may or may not have extensive programming experience, rather than focusing just on the people who enter college with a lot of programming under their belt

It sounds all well and good when you put it like that, but as an undergrad at CMU in the ECE program (which shares a lot of classes with CS kids, and I had a lot of CS friends) what we witnessed in reality was: the program was dumbed down for girls to get in. This was reflected in many more incoming students not having a clue about how to use a computer, let alone program it, and a lot of female CS majors changing majors by sophomore year. I'm not being mysogenistic here, trust me, CS guys were THRILLED at the prospect of more girls in the program, but it didn't pan out that way. Caveat being this was 1999-2002, I have no knowledge of how it's working now, but in the first 3 years we witnessed lower quality students and more CS degree program dropouts.

My own CMU story

[bconway]

This past year, I was accepted into Carnegie Mellon's School of Computer Science. It has been a remarkable experience that I would like to share with the community. Here's an account of my experience.

Week 1, Sunday: I moved in today. My roommate, a sophomore CS student, had already moved in two days before me. The floor is already completely covered with garbage. He also smells. I think he might be gay too. He's already asked me if I like the color he painted his toenails. This should be interesting. I am almost completely settled in. Techno music is playing in every room in every floor of my dorm. There are computers and other types of trash out in the common areas. What a mess. Tomorrow, I am going to go sign up to get my network connection.

Week 1, Monday: I got hooked up to the CMU network today! I jacked into the network, only to find that the hostname and address assigned to me were colliding with another system. I'll just increment the network numbers a few times. I am really eager to get on.

Week 1, Tuesday: I am still looking for a free IP address. Can't anybody here properly configure their systems?

Week 1, Friday: I finally found a free IP! It's mine! You sons of bitches can't have it, I found it, I keep it, it's mine! To hell with all of you! Head hurts really bad. I've slowly been developing a headache since I first arrived. Everywhere I look there are these Lucent Technologies wireless access points. I wonder if that's the problem.

Week 1, Saturday: I sat down at my computer today. My desktop wall paper is now the goatse.cx guy. Pleasant. Scattered over every directory on my C: drive are thousands, possibly millions, of files titled "J00AR30WN3DBITCH-phj33r-" and then some random hacker's name. Don't these people have lives? Maybe they need laid or something. It'd take days to clean this out. I mentioned to my roommate that I needed to reinstall Windows, and immediately he jumped up and shouted: "NO! Do NOT use Windows!" Suddenly, two dozen other guys (all of them possibly homosexuals) appeared at the door, each touting an operating system called Linux. Half of them got into a fight over which was better, Debian, RedHat, Slackware, and a bunch of others I couldn't recognize. Some kid who appeared to not have showered since he was born was touting "Linux From Scratch," saying that only losers used pre-made distros. A crowd of people in the back kept quiet about how I'd be sorry if I used Linux instead of BSD on the network. Who the fuck are these people? Classes start next week. Hope I have my computer working so I can do my assignments.

Week 3, Friday: People are still trying to get Linux to work on my system. They keep telling my that my hardware sucks. We go through about four or five distributions a day. Every now and then, I notice a little devil on my screen. Stickers for every of these distributions have been plastered on my case. Suddenly, my room stinks a lot more with these people in here. I ask them why they never shower, and the usual response is something along the lines of "showering is like rebooting" and "I don't want to lose my uptime."

Week 3, Saturday: There's a troop of men running naked in a circle around McGill Hall. I am not even going to ask.

Week 4, Wednesday: Linux is FINALLY working on my computer! I have a pretty slick desktop too. I think I might like this. I can finally work in my room instead of the labs, although considering the every increasing layer of garbage on the floor...

Week 4, Thursday: My computer flashes messages about how I am "0WNX0RED" and how I should "PHJ33R" whoever and how "L4MEX0R" I am for having an insecure box. A kid suggests we reinstall Linux after discovering about 17 rootkits.

Week 5, Friday: Someone got BSD working on my computer. I wonder if this will last. The stress has been building and I forgot to

Why does this matter

[Neil Watson]

Why should it matter who is getting comp-sci degrees. Shouldn't we care that the candidates are good and not what colour, race or sex they are?

Re:Why does this matter

[Neil Watson]

In theory, anyways, the demographic should be closer to 50/50.

I don't agree with that. Men and women are different. They think differently and are likely to have different interests.

Slipping standards are not a solution...

[Digitalia]

They intend to attract more CS students by eliminating the need for programming skills? I have heard time and time again from recruiters that more and more CS graduates are completely incapable of programming, so why exacerbate the problem by graduating even more students who are unable to perform adequately?

CS is more than just programming, but a CS student incapable of programming is about as useful as a physicist who cannot do math. To suggest that the standards of a program should be relaxed to achieve parity between the genders is ridiculous. What are we to do in other fields, where the number of women exceeds that of men? In the field of education, are we supposed to graduate students who don't know how to teach? Are art majors supposed to leave school without learning any technique?

Great idea!

[cabalamat3]

Moving emphasis away from programming proficiency was a key to the success of programs

This is a good idea and I think it could equally be applied to boosting the numbers of under-represented groups in other areas. For example, proficiency at flying should no longer be a requirement for airline pilots. And surgeons shouldn't have to be good at doing operations. To say otherwise is elitist and divisive.

Does this sound wrong to anybody else?

[grasshoppa]

Shouldn't CS programs be changing to adapt to business needs ( like a real networking degree )? Or how about a CS program that changes to better educate the students?

Seems somehow wrong to be cattering to a gender.

Re:Does this sound wrong to anybody else?

[Just Some Guy]

Shouldn't CS programs be changing to adapt to business needs

Shouldn't physics programs be changing to adapt to business needs?

Shouldn't astronomy programs be changing to adapt to business needs?

Shouldn't math programs be changing to adapt to business needs?

Shouldn't computer science programs be changing to adapt to business needs?

No. No. No. No.

20 Years Too Late

[lbmouse]

Why couldn't they have done this when I was in school? It was a regular sausage fest in my FORTRAN 77 class.

Or as the article says:

[khasim]

And there is widespread misunderstanding about jobs moving abroad, said Ed Lazowska, a computer scientist at the University of Washington. Companies may establish installations overseas to meet local licensing requirements or in hopes of influencing regulations, he said, "but the truth is when companies offshore they are more or less doing it for access to talent."

"Cheap labor is not high on the list," Dr. Lazowska said. "It is access to talent."

Bullshit.

If there was that big of a demand over here then more people would be getting into it to take advantage of the high salaries.

There's demand, but there's also a limit to how much will be paid. So it is all about the "cheap labor".

Actually, lots of jobs here

[WindBourne]

They are in small to medium size companies. The large companies will play with hiring contractors, but few are moving their work overseas. The only companies really moving the jobs overseas are monster companies that have enormous IT operations or those that are pure IT companies. MS, IBM, HP, ATT, QWEST, Verizon, etc. are all moving jobs overseas. The reasons vary, and the results more so. Where the large companies have found is that hiring in India is difficult due to the fact that the good ones have already been hired on. Now, the majority are those coming from starter schools and 2 year schools. In addition, Indian law makes firing somebody difficult (as hard as in much of europe). At this time, India is actually worse then hiring in America.
That is why Argentina is catching on. If and when Russia ever gets their act together and create better laws for a business world (and enforces them), then that will be THE place to be.

But even with all that, we will still have plenty of good CS jobs here. But I maintain, that we CSers are better off starting our own companies. Even if you have to do a dozen of them before succeeding.

as a woman programmer...

[butterflysrage]

let me say this... you can change up the university degree all you want and you will not radically change the gender makeup of the student body as that is not where the problem is... it's in the highschools.

The number of girls that are presured by friends, family and even teachers to get out of maths and into the arts and social sciences is crazy. "Math just isn't a good choice for you... how about law? or history?", if this was just from other girls it wouldnt be as bad, but that quote was from my algebra teacher (a course which I got a 90% in dispite his dislike of me). Young girls are actively presured by teachers and adminsistration to avoid maths and science.

If you really want to get more girls into comp sci, stop highschool teachers from telling us what we can and can not do.

As a female CS major...

[zelphie]

I'd be overjoyed to see the percentage of women in my courses get above 10%. But I don't think that changing course content should be the answer, since I don't think it's the problem. Instead, I'd blame:

1.) Lack of any experience of CS in high school. Even in schools that offer AP CS (which mine didn't), isn't it usually an elective that could just as well be filled with a language or second science course or music, etc? Since it's not a required class like math or chemistry, it's pretty easy to graduate from high school without ever even realizing computer science exists... or that you're good at it or like it.
2.) And when you get to college, who wants to have all their courses with just guys? Especially when everyone knows that CS majors are nerds? So why bother seeing if you like it? If everyone there already is a guy, then they must be better at or it something, right? Why else would it be so unbalanced?
3.) Bad advising. When I told mine I wanted to take intro to CS, because I was planning on majoring in chem and thought it might be useful, she told me I should take a humanities course instead, because I'd probably get a better grade. Luckily I decided to take it anyway and liked it enough to change my major.

And now when I try to convince friends to take the intro course (because I thought it was fun... and it could be good to know anyway), my guy friends tend to say that it sounds interesting, while my girl friends usually say something about how they'd probably fail. I think until the perception of who can take CS classes and do well in them changes, changing the curriculum or appearance of the program won't do much.

OMG Ponies

[roman_mir]

One of the largest barriers to recruiting women to the field is the nerd factor. To attract women students to the CS field, 'Moving emphasis away from programming proficiency was a key to the success of programs Dr. Blum and her colleagues at Carnegie Mellon instituted to draw more women into computer science.' - how do we really know that those 28-38% are not the number of women who would go into this field anyway, whatever the stigma is?

"Women are the canaries in the coal mine," Lenore Blum, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University, told an audience at Harvard University in March, in a talk on this "crisis" in computer science. Factors driving women away will eventually drive men away as well, she and others say. - there is a crisis in computer science, really? That is fascinating. Let's paint it pink, maybe the crisis will go away? Seriously though, I do not believe in crisis in computer science, I also do not believe that trying to show comsci off as something it is not will not help the issue (too few beautiful females in the software cubicles.)

And there is widespread misunderstanding about jobs moving abroad, said Ed Lazowska, a computer scientist at the University of Washington. Companies may establish installations overseas to meet local licensing requirements or in hopes of influencing regulations, he said, "but the truth is when companies offshore they are more or less doing it for access to talent." - isn't that the MS line, that they cannot find enough talent in North America? What, with about a third of a billion people here the tallent is excruciatingly hard to come by.

"Cheap labor is not high on the list," Dr. Lazowska said. "It is access to talent." - bullshit. I am a contractor working mostly in GTA (Canada,) all the outsourcing that I have witnessed within multiple companies is justified by 'low cost' argument, none is justified by 'we cannot find talent' bs.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, demand for computer scientists in the United States will only increase in coming years, Dr. Cuny said. "If you look at the demographics of the country, if we are not
going to get our new professionals from women and minorities and persons with disabilities, we are not going to have enough." - yep. We need the women and the crippled (do emotionally crippled count?) don't forget about minorities. Excuse me? There are PLENTY of so-called minorities in this field. In many firms the software dep's are dominated by minorities (well on my experience, and I've been around, by the way is it just Toronto, or do whites come off as visible minority in the US as well?) By the way in the Chinese 'minorities' who are in comsci the % of women is much higher than in the white folks.

"The nerd factor is huge," Dr. Cuny said. According to a 2005 report by the National Center for Women and Information Technology, an academic-industry collaborative formed to address the issue, when high school girls think of computer scientists they think of geeks, pocket protectors, isolated cubicles and a lifetime of staring into a screen writing computer code. - <sarcasm>Oh, no, in this field you will be surrounded by beautiful socially apt people, with great personalities. You will become a celebrity and will be stalked by paparazzi, who will fight each other just to take your picture and post it on the cover of Glamour.</sarcasm> Ok, not everything in this field is about pocket protectors, isolated cubicles and computer screens, but a lot of it is. A
LOT.

This image discourages members of both sexes, but the problem seems to be more prevalent among women. "They think of it as programming," Dr. Cuny said. "They don't think of it as revolutionizing the way we are going to do
medicine or create synthetic molecules or study our impact on the climate of the earth." - they should through more buzzwords into this. Think about it as not of programming software for whatever purpose, think about
it as of rev

Dilute to taste.

[mutube]

The fact that some people react to the effort this way is arguably one of the reasons it's probably a good idea.

Changing a CS degree to contain elements of Fashion Design would achieve the same results. That does not mean it's a good idea. Watering down one degree for mass appeal inevitably reduces the proficiency of graduates in the specific areas targeted. Mass appeal is no indicator of quality.

Perhaps a better solution is a wider range of degrees and options for those that wish to avoid programming, while retaining courses for those with a genuine interest.

Re:Dilute to taste.

[innosent]

Exactly, as an employer looking to hire people as programmers (which would be the majority of the jobs looking for CS degrees), you now have people with a degree that means nothing. There are very few positions (professors, researchers) where theory is more important than actually being able to write code. I say we should go in the completely opposite direction, with more architecture and programming classes (using architecture to have people actually understand what they are doing, and why a certain code block is efficient/inefficient on the hardware it is running on), and only one or two survey courses on algorithms and theory, with more available as electives. CS should be an Engineering degree, as it is in my school (UCF), not a liberal arts degree. I don't see many women in Mechanical, Aerospace, Electrical, or Computer Engineering either, should we stop building cars, satellites, and circuits too? Of course, 28% seems extremely high to me, as my experience has been that there are far less than that in my classes, at least in the later stages (1 each in my senior/grad classes).

Re:Dilute to taste.

[Rei]

How is reducing the dependency on learning specific programming languages "watering down the degree"? Let me tell you, if the first language I had programmed in was Java, I would have been deterred, too. Learning a programming language isn't like learning Swahili here. It's just a syntax for expressing how you want to get things done. The quality of a programmer isn't how well they know a particular syntax; it's what they plan to put into code.

The first part of any learning path should be to allow those who are not familiar with it to see what you can do with it. Do we start teaching mathematics with order of operations? No -- we show first how to count (immediate practical applications), then how to add, subtract, and other things with immediate practical applications. Do we start teaching reading with sentence diagramming? No -- we start with simple sentences (immediate practical applications). Etc. So why should we start on programming with a focus on learning a language? You should start with a simple language with a clear syntax** -- then work on practical applications immediately. Competitiveness and freedom in project selection should also be encouraged early on. If people get to work on what they want and are trying to outdo their friends, they're more likely to spend more time, actually learn what they're doing, and really get into it.

Good coding style (comments, self-documenting code, etc) should be taught and rewarded early. If a more complex language is needed for later courses, the switch should be made as necessary. Object oriented code and important modern coding features/standards (templates, const correctness, etc) should be taught after the introductory courses. Data structures would probably be good after that. As for learning languages, I'm more of a fan of the concept of a later "Programming Languages" class that simply covers learning a number of different languages, stressing the advantages and disadvantages of each. There's no need to frontload the learning of languages. Learn what's neat about programming first, then learn how to be a good coder, then diversify your language and library knowledge.

** -- I learned on BASIC, but something like Python would probably work well. A fun language with a useful syntax would be LPC (a MUD-coding language), since you can "visualize" and "handle" everything that you code, everyone has an avatar in the same virtual world, and it's based on C, so it would make switching to C easier. Another option that would probably help attract teens is Javascript -- relatively simple if you stick to a single browser, and definitely useful since webpages are really popular among teenagers.

Re:Dilute to taste.

[VENONA]

"CS should be an Engineering degree"

Strongly disagree. It should be made more of a science, not less of one. Computing is going to become increasingly vital for many things. CS should be where the basic reseach happens.

I'm not arguing against better programs which focus on programming--algorithm selection, design patterns, architecture (machine and software), etc. There is a rather large divide between science and engineering. CS already has science in the name of the program. Use it for that. For the rest--stay with engineering terms, such as Software Engineering or similar.

If CS becomes an engineering course, where is the science supposed to happen? How do you train the next generation of researchers? Do we have to create a program called Really Computer Science? Of course we'd immediately need a course within the program called Identification of Serious Semantic Suckage.

Re:Dilute to taste.

[Rei]

Java is as ugly and awkward of a language as I've ever used, barring LISP-derivatives. As for your comments, pretty much every language people would consider except for C does memory management. GUI programming is not a first year topic. OO is not an immediate topic for learning (late first year, early second perhaps, unless it's as seamless as you see in languages like LPC).

For a beginning language, you want the syntax to be as easy as possible. Let's look at a Java "Hello World":

public class Hello {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        System.out.println("Hello World!");
    }
}

1) Classes are not beginning topics. They should be introduced as soon as possible, but certainly not at the very beginning. They're req'd in Java. And Java's implementation of them is poor.
2) "public static void" and "String[] args" are nonsense to a beginner.
3) System.out.println is pointlessly verbose. We do *not* want beginners to be having to learn libraries to get anything done.

Java is not an intuitive language -- certainly not for a beginner. Let's iterate over the characters in a string (a typical beginner task, right?). How do you do that in Java? Why, like this:

CharacterIterator it = new StringCharacterIterator("abcd"); // Iterate over the characters in the forward direction
for (char ch=it.first(); ch != CharacterIterator.DONE; ch=it.next()) { // Use ch ...
}

Yeah. A bloody iterator. That's a great beginners topic.(/sarcasm) All sorts of other great "beginner" topics like there being both primitives and classes for all basic number types and the like. Of course, even some primitives are confused -- is a char a character or a number? Why, it's both! Try out "blah" + 's' (JDK 1.1 -> "blahs"; JDK 1.2 -> "blah15"). Java dates are very ugly; I don't think I even need to get into them (certainly a newbie wouldn't want to!). You can't compare strings for equality with == like you do for most everything else; you have to use equals(). You have gems like "".compareTo(null) throwing a null pointer exception. Oh, java nulls, gotta love them. String.valueOf on an int[] returns "null", but on a char[] returns a null pointer exception. Java makes you pointlessly cast all the time and makes you stick parens all over the place; I've seen apps spend half their time casting. Java error reporting when compiling is done very poorly. Java crashes manage to be both verbose and unhelpful -- quite a challenge. There are more incompatabilities between versions and interpreters than you can shake a stick at. Even running a Java program is made needlessly complex for a beginner.

I'll repeat: Java is *not* a language to teach coding to a beginner in. You're going to drive people away by doing that.

Dear GP, sorry for this, it is nothing pesonal

[xtracto]

For fucks sake, I think a lot of people here in slashdot should go and study Computer Science to realize that CS is NOT all about programming, there are countless branches of Computer Science were programming has *nothing* to do. I am making my PhD in Comp.Science right now, and if it wasnt for the fact that I am doing simulations (which in some circumstances it might be possible to do *without* programming like using RepastPy) I would not be using programming.

You people are confusing Computer Science with Software Engineering. Software Engineering is what most of slashdotters would *need* to study in order to be "professional" developers (this is, learn the theory and background behind that PHP, Python, Java, C++, C, Visual Basic, etc etc /coding/ you do).

It is completely possible to study in a subfield of Computer Science (in fact in many of them) without knowing how to program (in fact, many of my fellow PhD students do exactly that, oh, and my own supervisor [a Prof. in Comp. Science] does not /code/).

Several slashdotters will find this last comment offending: I believe that removing Programming will indeed attract more women, basically because this fat-dirty-geek-egocentric-smelly person idea is specifically centered on programmers, coders, etc, not on Computer Scientists overall. Gosh, there are really intelligent Women in Computer Scientists, one that comes to mind now is the cryptoanalyst women that sometimes has been featured in slashdot.

Re:Dear GP, sorry for this, it is nothing pesonal

[linguae]

One problem with your last comment. There are many fields within computer science that require programming; in fact, the only field that doesn't require coding is theoretical computer science and its relatives (such as algorithm complexity), and even those fields can benefit from coding skills to provide some real world measurements that complement the theoretical ones. For example, systems research (my personal favorite area of computer science, which consists of operating systems, networking, databases, file systems, etc.) is heavily dependent on programming, because systems research is quite experimental. You make a hypothesis, design your system, implement your system (which involves coding), and do performance analysis. Most other fields in computer science work very similarly.

Yes, it is true that once you become a professor, you don't have to code; you can just hire some graduate students to code for you ;). However, all computer scientists should know how to program. Do you have to be the best programmer in the world? No. However, programming is very important in computer science, even in the theoretical fields. Programming is one of the tools in a computer scientist's toolbox. A good computer scientist knows how to program well, even if they aren't the best in the world.

Removing programming removes a key component of the computer science curriculum and limits the choices to theoretical computer science (and that requires good algorithmic and mathematical skills, which is related to programming skills). Programming isn't rocket science. Perhaps we can encourage society that programming isn't something to be intimidated by, just like we have encouraged society over the past 40 years that mathematics and science are nothing to be intimidated by, either. In order to succeed in computer science, you have to learn how to program. Sorry, but it's the truth.

Re:Dear GP, sorry for this, it is nothing pesonal

[fireboy1919]

CS is NOT all about programming, there are countless branches of Computer Science were programming has *nothing* to do

Name one. I bet there's some programming involved in there.

When I was going through, the major CS areas I studied were Computer Vision, AI, Cognitive Science, Security, Compiler Theory, Language Theory, and OS Design.

There wasn't a single one of those that didn't involve writing code. You *can* do those things without writing code, but that's not as useful. You advance the field by showing that you've got a new approach that works better than previous approaches. You write a paper with theoretical and empirical evidence. You get your empirical evidence by running your code.

Sure, you need the theory as well. If you've got an algorithm that you think is always more clever than the currently accepted best - or that breaks something currently thought of as unbreakable, etc, you need to prove it mathematically. But a lot of people will think that you're probably pulling a fast one if you don't have actual data to back it up, so you probably should implement it.

Re: play factor

[Bluesman]

I'm sitting in a data structures class right now.

Pay attention, stop socializing.

Interesting ideas, but it's NOT computer science

[linguae]

Some select quotes from the article (boldface font is emphasis by me):

This image discourages members of both sexes, but the problem seems to be more prevalent among women. "They think of it as programming," Dr. Cuny said. "They don't think of it as revolutionizing the way we are going to do medicine or create synthetic molecules or study our impact on the climate of the earth."

Like others in the field, Dr. Cuny speaks almost lyrically about the intellectual challenge of applying the study of cognition and the tools of computation to medicine, ecology, law, chemistry -- virtually any kind of human endeavor.

He and his colleagues at the University of Washington (which never had a programming requirement, he said) have produced a Web page for prospective students with an explicit goal of breaking stereotypes about computer science and demonstrating that computer scientists "work in a broad range of interesting fields" -- everything from designing prosthetics to devising new ways to fight forest fires.

The emphasis on scientific computing and other applications of computers to scientific and medical fields sounds interesting, but it is not computer science. That is called computational science or scientific computing. Computer science is about the study of computation and computers and has different subfields, which includes theoretical CS, algorithms, programming languages, systems (a wide range of topics such as OSes, file systems, networks, databases, compilers, etc.), graphics, and AI. Most computer scientists could care less about designing prosthetics or studying climate changes; they are generally interested in whatever subfield they specialize in.

There is a big difference between computer science and scientific computing. Scientific computing applies computer science skills to other disciplines, but it isn't computer science itself. When you are studying computer science, you study the aforementioned subdivisions above. When you study scientific computing, you know just enough CS to apply it to other disciplines, but it shouldn't be called CS.

I have no problem with attracting women to computing disciplines. I, for one, would strongly support such an effort. However, what is proposed by CMU is not computer science, and it shouldn't be called such. There should be no changes in the standard computer science curriculum. CMU's undergraduate computer science program is one of the best in the country, and if it isn't broken, then it shouldn't be fixed. Instead, CMU should start a scientific computing major inside of the School of Computer Science.