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Boot Camps Introducing More Women To Tech (dice.com)
Nerval's Lobster writes: A new study from Course Report suggests that boot camps are introducing more women to the tech-employment pipeline. Data for the study came from 769 graduates from 43 qualifying coding schools (a.k.a. boot camps). Some 66 percent of those graduates reported landing a full-time job that hinged on skills learned at the boot camp. Although the typical "bootcamper" is 31 years old, with 7.6 years of work experience, relatively few had a job as a programmer before participating in a boot camp. Perhaps the most interesting data-point from Course Report, though, is that 36 percent of "bootcampers" are women, compared to 14.1 percent coming into the tech industry via undergraduate programs. Bringing more women and underrepresented groups into the tech industry is a stated goal of many companies. Over the past few years, these companies' diversity reports have bemoaned how engineering and leadership teams skew overwhelmingly white and male. Proposed strategies for the issue include adjusting how companies recruit new workers; boot camps could also quickly deepen the pool of potential employees with the right skills.
It's Friday on the east coast, so I guess we are back to Feminism Fridays.
Yay for racist and sexist social justice policy!
Do not comment on these articles or they will continue forever.
Pass them by. If you agree, reply with the code word "GIBLETS"
Didn't you hear? They made Asians honorable whites as soon as they demonstrated a study and work ethic.
It's like "white hispanic", whatever label is most convenient for the SJW narrative of the day.
Normally as an employee in the field it would be logical for me to be against these things as they increase the supply of labor which drives down my salary theoretically.
But being a long time employee in the field, I know it doesn't work the way these people think it works. You can't just pop in to your local coding boot camp after working for 10 years as an apartment manager or secretary and start crapping out code.
Somebody who grew up spending countless hours nerding out and went from hobby->job will almost always be leaps and bounds better than someone who went into software/IT as a career as if it's just like going to a heating and air conditioning school. "I'll spend 6 months learning how to do Javascript and Ruby and then I'll go get a $100K job!" Right.
I for one welcome our new narrowly educated, technically sparse "programming" overlords.
Increasing "diversity" (read: instituting gender or skin based racism) is bad when you do so by reducing the quality of people you are working with... No-one is "threatened" by diversity, most welcome anyone who is a pleasant and effective co-worker.
But again, "diversity" is not welcome at the cost of losing touch with reality that work needs to get done.
Which is why the code-camps are a good step, because more women attend them and thus it increases the quality of women hires.
Posting anon because obviously I would be doxxed and/or murdered for these thoughts should I reveal my name.
Not the original AC, but still answering.
Women just feel more comfortable in these environments and thus are more likely to participate.
So, you applying stereotypes here? You assume that women are so weak and fragile that they must be forced to decide to work in tech? Can't they decide for themselves?
Adding opportunities for others doesn't reduce your own opportunities any more than opening up an atheist club diminishes Christian churches.
In fact, I'm even fine with "girl" boot camps and so on. I really don't care whether they exist or not. Just don't cover all of tech news with these SJW things. What would you say if the new york times had an article about atheists every day, the finance part about how "atheists are the unknown potential", the culture part about "art hall announces atheist exhibition", the main page about atheist boot camps?
The second reason why I don't like these SJW "lets have more woman workers" initiatives is because they mainly stem from companies wanting to lower salaries for their engineers by changing the market, having a common source with the H1B lobbying those companies do for the same reason.
Instead of yet another codegirls.org initiative, google has a very simple way to do something to fight against sexism. Their vast ad network delivers not just malware, it also serves as the platform for many sexist ad campaigns or ad messages. Why don't they use their influence to get rid of sexist ads? This surely isn't the only sexist aspect of society, but it wouldn't just cure symptoms.
We need more diversity. It should be 50% incompetents.
^^^
This is called proof by counterexample. When you're done arguing fantasies of equality for all in a job that requires precision and logical thinking I recommend you look it up. I have no problem with everyone being given equal opportunity, but at the end of the day I want the most competent person to get the job.
It takes a special kind of person to see celebrating greater diversity as celebrating the decline of another group.
I don't understand it myself. What's wrong with increasing diversity? Is it that you feel threatened because you think you can't compete in the job market? Are you afraid of interacting women and minorities?
A person who disagrees with the diversity rhetoric is not necessarily doing so because they feel threatened. In my case, for example, I see two main reasons to oppose it:
(1) Many of the claims made by the supporters of diversity are irrational claims. See, for example, http://www.ams.org/notices/201409/rnoti-p1024.pdf. An individual who values logic and rational thought should be expected to oppose such claims.
(2) The benefits of diversity are not really apparent to me, but I am increasingly pressured to help to increase diversity. In that sense, discussion of diversity is an annoyance that takes time away from other endeavors. In particular, many individuals read Slashdot as a form of entertainment. The discussion of diversity diminishes that entertainment.
You strongly imply that white males are being attacked or otherwise oppressed and that some unnamed other takes pleasure in causing that harm.
Do you remember that "pac-man" pie chart of religious affiliation in the US? The one where the largest piece is saying "help, we're being oppressed!"? Your comment reminds me of that.
It's really easy to be a Christian in the US. You're in the majority...
You seem to be jumping to unwarranted conclusions here. (See point 1, above.) The people who are opposed to the diversity rhetoric are not necessarily white male Christians.
Though, as many atheists know, there are also social consequences for those on the outside. The larger group benefits from something called "privilege".
I couched that in religious terms for your benefit. It's easy to see that Christians in the US are not, in fact, being oppressed and that they enjoy numerous social benefits. It's also easy to see why atheists often need to hide their beliefs to avoid discrimination or other harmful conflict.
I, in fact, happen to be atheist. I have always been very open about my beliefs, even though I spent most of my life living in a conservative religious community. Although I did receive some harassment for my beliefs, you greatly exaggerate it. For example, I never needed to "hide [my] beliefs to avoid discrimination or other harmful conflict" while I was growing up.
Its not as if the industry is setting up gender quotas and free schools specifically for women, the pew study indicates that women have a 2 to 1 advantage in odds of being hired in tech. They see some discrepency in the population figures, and think that any disparity is due to some 'oppression', instead of people choosing to do what they want, in reality its the older devs lot who are discriminated against.
There ought to be a distinction made between computer scientists and computer artisans, these bootcamps are really quite shitty and churn out the worst talent. What I've noticed is that most of the female positions in the 'tech' industry aren't in 'technology', they are in fields that USE technology and not PRODUCE technology, especially the disproportionate numbers of them in 'evangelist', HR, outreach, community managers, business, etc.
Tell women they'll get a cute pair of boots and they'll go anywhere. [/teasingmygirlfriend]
Women are also severely underrepresented in mining, oil drilling, heavy equipment operation, fishing, logging, plumbing, transportation and garbage collection. We should work hard to encourage more women to take these well paid jobs.
Sig ?
Anyone disagreeing is now an MRA? What about the flip side, instantly modded +5 insightful; an overly worded straw-man. I should just call those that modded him insightful as vapid SJW feminists, right?
Yes, the /. modding system is flawed. Yes, -1 troll is used as disagree by many. However, to use a brush so large to paint everyone that disagrees with the sacred cow of identity politics is an MRA is laughable.
I think that is one thing that I absolutely hate about modern feminism. They claim moral superiority on everything and if you disagree and dismiss any claim.
A woman disagrees; just wants male attention, brainwashed, internalized misogyny, all the above!
A man disagrees; just an MRA, rape apologist, privileged, moral degenerates, misogynists, all the above!
Equal opportunity, we have it. Or are you going to try and convince me that a male being in the same room as a female is oppressing her ability to learn CS.
If we want women to be treated as equals in society then people had bloody well better just start treating them as equals... That means that we need to stop fucking focusing on things like disparity in genders in particular fields where there is no technical reason that such disparity should exist. If it does still exist when society is simply treating men and women the same anyways, then who the fuck cares? Stop worrying about stuff that shouldn't matter in the first place and just treat every human being you encounter with the dignity and respect they deserve. Nobody can ask for more than that.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'