It sounds as though our experiences are largely the same. I had very similar performance, but did not believe that I would be accepted into a good college. I went to an OK undergrad institution, worked for a while... it sucked.
I returned to grad school and, well, I'm getting into a good PhD program in the Fall.
Haha. I'm flamebait? Get over it! Want more fuel for the fire? I started at a software company 4 years ago. I know only 2 engineers there who still want to pursue engineering. Everyone else is getting MBAs. The comany finally caught on that they were going to lose their entire workforce and promoted a few people, but when I left, a nice 25 year old woman was starting out with an MBA from a teeny tiny not elitist at all college, and was making more than the Senior Software Engineers and Senior Systems Analysts were, after about 20 years in the field.
Go send your kid into engineering. Getting those top jobs is a 2 percenter thing, at best. You're just lining your kid up as outsourcing fodder if they don't actually like the field.
Let them do something that they like.
If it's engineering, well, go them. The M.Eng class here is something like 30-40% female, just looking around the lab, and we're a top school.
I think that the a big element of this is the era that we're from is a different era (I'm a male grad student at the moment).
One of my advisors that I have been fortuate to work quite closely with feels that women arediscriminated against. I have to wonder how much of the difference, however, is the difference in experience between our generation and her generation (not quite 20 years difference).
At my high school, the valedictorian and salutatorian were both female, as were most of the top 10 students.
I scored top in the American High School Math Exam, tied with one other male, but I was only in the top 1/3rd of my class, not top 10. I also had top 10 SAT and PSAT scores, aptitute tests... IQ tests. Guidance even came and asked me why I wasn't top 10 (probably figuring some sort of abuse or drug use or something).
Simply put, the teachers never saw me in the smart-clique, and so never decided that I was a smart student.
More women go to college as undergraduates than men, and I think that this actually extends to graduate school as well.
So, if anything, this phenomenon is QUITE specific to technical fields, because to assert that high schools are somehow shortchanging women is a tired argument that looks at a non-existant problem. If you want to solve something, look at the REAL numbers and figure out what the REAL problem is, not some politically correct BS spewed forth from someone who isn't even interested in what the real numbers are.
Not to sound like a jerk, but lets throw it down like this.
I'm a fairly successful person (so far), in computer science.
People graduating from my current institution can expect to make about $70k a year with a Masters. A high number of people in engineering here leave to do something other than engineering, when they discover that they will be paid more in other fields (a friend of mine who is becoming a banker will start at $120K/year.
So, while there is a gender gap, one has to ask if telling women to go into computer science will be at all good for their careers. Certainly a certain percentage of all people would like to go into computer science, out of a genuine love for the field. I fall into this group. I hope that all women who fall into this group, do so. I would advocate, however, that we stop trying to push our kids into this field out of a perception that it will somehow make them successful.
Lets break down the facts. Even in the dot-com boom, the jobs that paid the most did not require degrees in computer science. It doesn't take a thick book of credentials to become a web hacker. Go to a web shop, and ask the people working there what their credentials are.
Now, go to any business, and ask their IT people what their credentials are.
There are a lot more of those people, and they only get paid marginally less than programmers. The programmers are in a very very tough job market, so mostly only good ones get jobs programming anywhere (though, there are notable exceptions, of course), and they're overqualified for networking.
As a programmer, without a masters, I made $40k a year. Does it sound like your daughter couldn't make more with a degree in marketing or accounting?
Now that we've got that one solved, you have to ask if pushing kids into the field is a good idea. Only a few of them actually like it, to the rest, even a bachelors is a hellish workload in a field that they dislike. Go ask your marketing student how many all nighters they pull a week. In the atrium here, students write things like "Why don't they let me sleep!!" on the whiteboards... and those are the undergrads, us grads are off in our offices or labs.
So, fine... perhaps we need to make sure that the women who want to be here get here. I am a hearty, strong advocate of THAT, but before you send your daughter off to some brainwashing session that says that she needs to become an engineer, remember that it's a person with an MBA who will be her boss, not someone with a degree in engineering.
I'm not going to chime in on Rush, since it's been years since I've heard one of his shows (so, I haven't a clue), however, more often than not, totally misinformed posts get modded up.
I've read several stories on areas that I actively research. Generally the best modded posts are ones that were obviously written by someone with no knowledge of the topic. I recall reading one story on natural language processing, where a top-modded post indicated that he would be impressed when systems could properly parse out a sentence gramatically.
We do that, they're called graph parsers and they work quite well. There are a number of natural language tasks that we don't do so well yet, but that's not one of them. That's one of the ones were researchers generally trust the output of the system.
But I still disagree. The NSF GRFP has an essay that is, "what do you want to research?"
Now, obviously EVERYONE does, it's similar to the personal statement in PhD apps, but more research slanted, and you can be a bit more biased. NASA isn't going to seriously consider anything that puts nothing forward. I'm sure that there is a "put up or shut up" aspect to the app where you at least have to have citations and an explanation that it's a good idea.
That sounds a lot like a standard research proposal to me still.
I was being a little facetious. It's a big whoops on my part though, those are Icon of Coil Lyrics... VNV Nation does tend to make more sense, whereas Icon doesn't so much:-D
Agencies do this all of the time, they just don't normally get FP'd on Slashdot. The people who usually respond to these things are university labs.
For instance, I am a research assistant, and worked under a similar proposal for the development of Artificial Intelligence. My advisor being the contractor under which the work was done.
The work is in multiple phases, with updates to the funding agency (DARPA) every year or so, and the money amounts are synonymous (though, DARPA has a lot more cash).
If you're looking for PR stunts, look at the DARPA Grand Challenge. No money up-front, and $2 million to the winning team out of a field of over 200 teams, with no cash going out the first year.
For DARPA research, those are bargain basement prizes. That said, I took part, and it was a wonderful experience. Perhaps PR stunts aren't so bad.
I thought that California would be packed with communists. I was kind of wondering how the heck a Republican ever became governor.
Ithaca, NY, home of Cornell University is actually predominantly socialist. The city has it's own money that it prints. Two forms, actually. Ithaca Hours, and City Bucks. The concept behind Ithaca Hours is that everyone gets paid an "hour" for every hour that they work. The concept behind City Bucks is that outside money is exchanged for a City Buck, which then sort of gets trapped in the towns economic system.
It's actually not a bad idea considering the presence of Cornell University and Ithaca College. It isn't hard to get an 18 year old idealist kid to agree with your politics. At that point, it isn't hard to get them to change their money to your city money, no matter how lousy it is economically for the kid (lots of businesses won't accept this stuff, and you can't use it outside of Ithaca). That provides an inlet to the system to pump the outside money in, after that, they can run it as a self-sustaining thing.
To further that point, American Idiot really is a stupid song. It only gets played because it's popular to bash on American.
Furthering my point, Americans sound studid when they insult America. It's like "look at me, my upbringing is poor." They think that, somehow, they separate themselves from the rest of America by doing that.
Also, further, if you want to hear about a tense political situation, listen to "What's Left of the Flag," by Flogging Molly. The lyrics are about the lead singer's father being shot to death. American Idiot is a meaningless rant that merely insults the United States as many times as possible.
Everybody loved "Dookie," but that was their only album that I had any taste for.
What's crazy about punk bands is that, for the most part, the bands that never quite infiltrate pop culture to the degree that Green Day has really are the better ones, it's not just kids trying to sound cool by liking the unpopular bands (well, most of the kids DO do that, but most of the people who really know what they're listening to do too).
I mean, which is a better band Flogging Molly, or Green Day? I haven't listened to a Green Day song in years (with willful intent at least), whereas I listened to Flogging Molly on the way to brunch this morning.
You give your data so you can be notified when the book is available, and your social security number to prove that you are allowed to check it out (IE, that you're a student or hold a card with the university library).
1) The robot is not radiation proof. 2) It was a pain in the ass.
The story is that they fixed a situation with a robot. The robot didn't make life easier, it was necessary because humans couldn't approach the radiation source, even in protective clothing. It took 4 days to do, and the success was mostly due to shrewd hackery on the part of the team operating the robot.
Slashdot Mirror
True enough. I regretted posting that after I did so.
Wow, sorry to misread your post.
It sounds as though our experiences are largely the same. I had very similar performance, but did not believe that I would be accepted into a good college. I went to an OK undergrad institution, worked for a while... it sucked.
I returned to grad school and, well, I'm getting into a good PhD program in the Fall.
Yeah, my company wasn't the greatest place on the planet to work. I think that mileage varies from company to company.
My ex-gf who is an auditor bought a house her first year out of school, in a good area.
Don't you feel it sexist that you're willing to say, essentially, that women are better than men?
Isn't this what people were supposedly fighting against in the first place?
Haha. I'm flamebait? Get over it! Want more fuel for the fire? I started at a software company 4 years ago. I know only 2 engineers there who still want to pursue engineering. Everyone else is getting MBAs. The comany finally caught on that they were going to lose their entire workforce and promoted a few people, but when I left, a nice 25 year old woman was starting out with an MBA from a teeny tiny not elitist at all college, and was making more than the Senior Software Engineers and Senior Systems Analysts were, after about 20 years in the field.
Go send your kid into engineering. Getting those top jobs is a 2 percenter thing, at best. You're just lining your kid up as outsourcing fodder if they don't actually like the field.
Let them do something that they like.
If it's engineering, well, go them. The M.Eng class here is something like 30-40% female, just looking around the lab, and we're a top school.
You rock.
I think that the a big element of this is the era that we're from is a different era (I'm a male grad student at the moment).
One of my advisors that I have been fortuate to work quite closely with feels that women arediscriminated against. I have to wonder how much of the difference, however, is the difference in experience between our generation and her generation (not quite 20 years difference).
Don't believe me?
e c02/college.html
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/july-d
At my high school, the valedictorian and salutatorian were both female, as were most of the top 10 students.
I scored top in the American High School Math Exam, tied with one other male, but I was only in the top 1/3rd of my class, not top 10. I also had top 10 SAT and PSAT scores, aptitute tests... IQ tests. Guidance even came and asked me why I wasn't top 10 (probably figuring some sort of abuse or drug use or something).
Simply put, the teachers never saw me in the smart-clique, and so never decided that I was a smart student.
More women go to college as undergraduates than men, and I think that this actually extends to graduate school as well.
So, if anything, this phenomenon is QUITE specific to technical fields, because to assert that high schools are somehow shortchanging women is a tired argument that looks at a non-existant problem. If you want to solve something, look at the REAL numbers and figure out what the REAL problem is, not some politically correct BS spewed forth from someone who isn't even interested in what the real numbers are.
Not to sound like a jerk, but lets throw it down like this.
I'm a fairly successful person (so far), in computer science.
People graduating from my current institution can expect to make about $70k a year with a Masters. A high number of people in engineering here leave to do something other than engineering, when they discover that they will be paid more in other fields (a friend of mine who is becoming a banker will start at $120K/year.
So, while there is a gender gap, one has to ask if telling women to go into computer science will be at all good for their careers. Certainly a certain percentage of all people would like to go into computer science, out of a genuine love for the field. I fall into this group. I hope that all women who fall into this group, do so. I would advocate, however, that we stop trying to push our kids into this field out of a perception that it will somehow make them successful.
Lets break down the facts. Even in the dot-com boom, the jobs that paid the most did not require degrees in computer science. It doesn't take a thick book of credentials to become a web hacker. Go to a web shop, and ask the people working there what their credentials are.
Now, go to any business, and ask their IT people what their credentials are.
There are a lot more of those people, and they only get paid marginally less than programmers. The programmers are in a very very tough job market, so mostly only good ones get jobs programming anywhere (though, there are notable exceptions, of course), and they're overqualified for networking.
As a programmer, without a masters, I made $40k a year. Does it sound like your daughter couldn't make more with a degree in marketing or accounting?
Now that we've got that one solved, you have to ask if pushing kids into the field is a good idea. Only a few of them actually like it, to the rest, even a bachelors is a hellish workload in a field that they dislike. Go ask your marketing student how many all nighters they pull a week. In the atrium here, students write things like "Why don't they let me sleep!!" on the whiteboards... and those are the undergrads, us grads are off in our offices or labs.
So, fine... perhaps we need to make sure that the women who want to be here get here. I am a hearty, strong advocate of THAT, but before you send your daughter off to some brainwashing session that says that she needs to become an engineer, remember that it's a person with an MBA who will be her boss, not someone with a degree in engineering.
You're correct, however, most people don't understand what a standard is.
Everyone can get a gmail account now. The have your friends recommend you bit ended months ago.
I'm not going to chime in on Rush, since it's been years since I've heard one of his shows (so, I haven't a clue), however, more often than not, totally misinformed posts get modded up.
I've read several stories on areas that I actively research. Generally the best modded posts are ones that were obviously written by someone with no knowledge of the topic. I recall reading one story on natural language processing, where a top-modded post indicated that he would be impressed when systems could properly parse out a sentence gramatically.
We do that, they're called graph parsers and they work quite well. There are a number of natural language tasks that we don't do so well yet, but that's not one of them. That's one of the ones were researchers generally trust the output of the system.
But I still disagree. The NSF GRFP has an essay that is, "what do you want to research?"
Now, obviously EVERYONE does, it's similar to the personal statement in PhD apps, but more research slanted, and you can be a bit more biased. NASA isn't going to seriously consider anything that puts nothing forward. I'm sure that there is a "put up or shut up" aspect to the app where you at least have to have citations and an explanation that it's a good idea.
That sounds a lot like a standard research proposal to me still.
I was being a little facetious. It's a big whoops on my part though, those are Icon of Coil Lyrics... VNV Nation does tend to make more sense, whereas Icon doesn't so much :-D
I think that a lot is lost in translation though.
No.
This is not a PR stunt.
Agencies do this all of the time, they just don't normally get FP'd on Slashdot. The people who usually respond to these things are university labs.
For instance, I am a research assistant, and worked under a similar proposal for the development of Artificial Intelligence. My advisor being the contractor under which the work was done.
The work is in multiple phases, with updates to the funding agency (DARPA) every year or so, and the money amounts are synonymous (though, DARPA has a lot more cash).
If you're looking for PR stunts, look at the DARPA Grand Challenge. No money up-front, and $2 million to the winning team out of a field of over 200 teams, with no cash going out the first year.
For DARPA research, those are bargain basement prizes. That said, I took part, and it was a wonderful experience. Perhaps PR stunts aren't so bad.
Wow.
I thought that California would be packed with communists. I was kind of wondering how the heck a Republican ever became governor.
Ithaca, NY, home of Cornell University is actually predominantly socialist. The city has it's own money that it prints. Two forms, actually. Ithaca Hours, and City Bucks. The concept behind Ithaca Hours is that everyone gets paid an "hour" for every hour that they work. The concept behind City Bucks is that outside money is exchanged for a City Buck, which then sort of gets trapped in the towns economic system.
It's actually not a bad idea considering the presence of Cornell University and Ithaca College. It isn't hard to get an 18 year old idealist kid to agree with your politics. At that point, it isn't hard to get them to change their money to your city money, no matter how lousy it is economically for the kid (lots of businesses won't accept this stuff, and you can't use it outside of Ithaca). That provides an inlet to the system to pump the outside money in, after that, they can run it as a self-sustaining thing.
It's odd, but it's Ithaca.
To further that point, American Idiot really is a stupid song. It only gets played because it's popular to bash on American.
Furthering my point, Americans sound studid when they insult America. It's like "look at me, my upbringing is poor." They think that, somehow, they separate themselves from the rest of America by doing that.
Also, further, if you want to hear about a tense political situation, listen to "What's Left of the Flag," by Flogging Molly. The lyrics are about the lead singer's father being shot to death. American Idiot is a meaningless rant that merely insults the United States as many times as possible.
Yep.
Everybody loved "Dookie," but that was their only album that I had any taste for.
What's crazy about punk bands is that, for the most part, the bands that never quite infiltrate pop culture to the degree that Green Day has really are the better ones, it's not just kids trying to sound cool by liking the unpopular bands (well, most of the kids DO do that, but most of the people who really know what they're listening to do too).
I mean, which is a better band Flogging Molly, or Green Day? I haven't listened to a Green Day song in years (with willful intent at least), whereas I listened to Flogging Molly on the way to brunch this morning.
Whoops, that's not rage, that's rain. That was me subconsciously trying to make the lyrics make some modicum of sense.
Are you sure you want to understand VNV Nation Lyrics?
For the uninformed, here's a sample:
If I only cause you rage
I'll give you my skin so you can feel what I feel
This is my existence
It's interlibrary loan.
You give your data so you can be notified when the book is available, and your social security number to prove that you are allowed to check it out (IE, that you're a student or hold a card with the university library).
That's not part of some authorization process.
WTF?
I think that this was a joke on "gangsta" rap, which is sung by such gang members as Snoop Dogg (crips) and The Game (bloods).
It's gamma radiation, they discuss that the robot is perfectly safe to handle after the bit.
Oh yeah, and there were now troops involved. These folks are all researchers.
Did you read the article?
1) The robot is not radiation proof.
2) It was a pain in the ass.
The story is that they fixed a situation with a robot. The robot didn't make life easier, it was necessary because humans couldn't approach the radiation source, even in protective clothing. It took 4 days to do, and the success was mostly due to shrewd hackery on the part of the team operating the robot.