Women in STEM

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Zedability
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Women in STEM

Post by Zedability »

This question about women in STEM, for reference.


All I have to say is BYU's "Women in Computer Science" website starts out like this:
Computer science is like creating a recipe. You create a recipe for a cook; you create a program for a computer. When the cook is following your recipe, you are not there to make corrections so your recipe must be complete and understandable. When the computer is executing your program, it needs even more precision because it cannot guess what you meant. You can tell a cook to bring water to a boil because the cook understands what "boiling" means. But a computer is a complete newcomer and would also need instructions on how to heat the water and determine when the water has begun to boil. In order to give computers specific instructions, computer scientists learn programming languages which they use to speak to the computer.
So yeah...I have no idea why it's hard to attract women to STEM. :roll:
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mic0
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Re: Women in STEM

Post by mic0 »

Look, yeah the example is traditionalist, but there isn't one foo bar or biz so I'm calling it a win.

I hate that the cooking example is seen as feminine (and of course it is!), because it is a great example of a program. So is knitting, another one we'd all roll our eyes at.

Eta: now my husband and I are discussing this issue at length, how do you get someone who doesn't know about a subject interested in it? And why don't they put the cooking example on the main cs page?? It's a good example!
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Tally M.
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Re: Women in STEM

Post by Tally M. »

I think one way that helps get someone interested that isn't interested is showing the applications of it and what it can be used to do.
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mic0
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Re: Women in STEM

Post by mic0 »

Agreed!
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Portia
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Re: Women in STEM

Post by Portia »

Money!!!
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Shrinky Dink
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Re: Women in STEM

Post by Shrinky Dink »

I graduated in mechanical engineering and am female, so I've definitely been the lone woman in many of my classes.

One of our early class requirements was to sit in on two 200, 300, and 400 level class periods so we could get a better idea of what lies ahead. One of my 300 level class periods was taught by the dean of the college and was very popular for students to sit in on. Every time a girl would sit in on the class, he would get extremely excited, ask her what her major is (at this point, many hadn't decided, were only taking the class for fun, or had some other reason for being curious about engineering) encourage her to pursue mechanical engineering, and encourage her to tell all her friends to major in engineering. If she already declared an engineering major, he would ask her why she chose it. He noticed that 95% of the time, girls in engineering had a father, brother, grandfather, or uncle who was an engineer. It was extremely rare for a girl to pursue STEM without having a male STEM influence in their life.

I think it would be fascinating to have a large group of STEM students from a variety of schools fill out a simple questionaire:
Gender- F
Major- Mechanical Engineering
Year Level- Graduated
University- BYU-I
Why did you choose your major? I like knowing how things work, want to improve the world, and look up to my dad.
List all the people in your family who worked/studied STEM and their relation to you- Dad EE and brother ME.

If we do happen to find an unusually large correlation between having a male family member in STEM and girls pursuing STEM, then I think we can make a next step to find ways to encourage non-STEM men to show and share interest in STEM related things.
*Insert Evil Laughter Here*
NovemberEast
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Re: Women in STEM

Post by NovemberEast »

Portia wrote:Money!!!
That is the only reason I graduated in a stem field. So yep.
NovemberEast
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Re: Women in STEM

Post by NovemberEast »

Shrinky Dink wrote: If we do happen to find an unusually large correlation between having a male family member in STEM and girls pursuing STEM, then I think we can make a next step to find ways to encourage non-STEM men to show and share interest in STEM related things.
My dad was a commercial airline pilot, which may not be traditionally STEM, but I consider it a tangential career as it requires math and tech skills to be qualified for employment. So, does that count as a correlation?

One problem I see with STEM attracting women is that I only see limited career choices being promoted as STEM. There's a loud marketing campaign out there to get women in computer programming and a few others. While those are great options, the possibilities are vast. For example, I have a STEM degree but I manage the construction of higher education and research facilities. And I think a lot of women would love doing what I do. To parallel the (lame) cooking example, what I do is basically like event planning but the end result is longer lasting and helps scientists cure cancer ;)
Katya
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Re: Women in STEM

Post by Katya »

NovemberEast wrote:One problem I see with STEM attracting women is that I only see limited career choices being promoted as STEM. There's a loud marketing campaign out there to get women in computer programming and a few others. While those are great options, the possibilities are vast. For example, I have a STEM degree but I manage the construction of higher education and research facilities. And I think a lot of women would love doing what I do. To parallel the (lame) cooking example, what I do is basically like event planning but the end result is longer lasting and helps scientists cure cancer ;)
This is a really interesting point. One of the problems in the humanities is that there aren't any (obvious) career paths for those degrees (aside from getting a PhD and becoming a professor). But in a STEM major with an "obvious" career path, it's possible to think that that career is the only possible end point.
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Portia
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Re: Women in STEM

Post by Portia »

For anyone local to Utah, I'm really excited to volunteer with this event.

http://shetechexplorer.com/

Under Partners > Mentors & Volunteers you can sign up, if you're interested. Was talking to a mom and her teenage daughter (who attends UCAS) about it last night, and they say they're excited for it. And to note less-traditional paths, she and her husband are immigrants from France: he's an electric vehicle engineer and she was a dentist in France. She didn't want to go through the hoopla to get re-certified, so she is a translator for tech companies now. (Also, I want their life. Haha.)
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