

How CMU Increased the Proportion of Women in Computer Science (2013) - superlucy
http://blog.play-i.com/carnegie-mellon-study-on-gender-and-computer-science?utm_source=hn

======
gamegoblin
I think that the biggest one is number 2 (giving more emphasis to CS potential
rather than CS skill in the admissions process).

Somehow we've made a society in which getting into computer programming at a
young age is generally not something young girls are taught to want.
Consequently, the huge majority of young programmers (below college age) are
boys.

I started programming when I was 12. The advantage this has given me in the
tech world (academia and industry) cannot be overstated. There is a giant gap
between people who start programming at a young age due to desire and
curiosity and people who learn to for coursework at uni.

So while not giving preferential treatment to the boys whom society has not
discouraged from programming at a young age (and seems to discourage girls
from it) is definitely going to increase the number of girls in the department
(which is a _good_ thing), I also think we should really figure out what
element of society is making programming an undesirable hobby for young
ladies.

~~~
tjr
I started programming when I was about 11. I did it on my own at home, and
also at school, where our classroom had an Apple II computer. At school, I was
joined by (especially) two others strongly interested in programming, one boy
and one girl.

Looking back, I could not identify anything whatsoever that would have made
our programming activities especially appealing to either boys or girls, nor
especially undesirable to either boys or girls. Really, I had the impression
that pretty much everyone else -- boys, girls, and teachers -- thought our
interest in programming was kind of strange, and being a boy (or a girl) had
nothing to do with it.

An anecdote, of course, and I have no idea how, or if, it fits into the bigger
picture.

~~~
gamegoblin
It's definitely hard to see. That's part of the problem. But if you look at
the number if programmers under age 18, I suspect the gap will be even wider
than > 18\. Something about society is pushing young women away from it.

Some of my suspicions:

1\. The internet is generally more hostile to girls. If you stumble into the
wrong chat room or forum, you get "show your tits". When I started
programming, I got on the internet for help and met some amazing friends who
helped me become a better programmer.

I absolutely hate when gender topics come up on HN because I generally like
this website, but gender topics tend to bring the assholes out of the
woodwork. I got a female CS student friend of mine reading HN regularly, but
when she ran into one of these sorts of threads she was appalled. And
rightfully so. And HN isn't nearly as bad as the internet at large.

2\. It's tied to video games being male majority. I played computer video
games a lot more than any girls I knew as a kid. This exposure to computers
(and config files, etc) set the stage for programming.

The video game realm is making a lot of progress in getting girls playing (I
think more or consoles than PC, but the general trend is up everywhere), and
I've seen this positively influence girls' predispositions towards
programming.

3\. There is a positive feedback loop in social circles, particularly in
formative years (middle school). Kids encourage the status quo. So it's hard
for a kid to develop hobbies outside of their clique. I think this relates to
the gender problem because girls at that age tend to be even more exclusive
than boys (at least in my experience and everyone I've asked).

But those are just suspicions and the real problem could be more fundamental.

------
wrthomps
I'm a CS major at CMU graduating this year and I think I can help elaborate on
the "potential vs. current level" thing a bit. Things have changed somewhat
since I entered the school, but the ideas are mostly the same.

For my class, there were three intro-level programming courses, each a prereq
for the next: introductory programming for those with no experience,
introduction to data structures, and fundamentals of algorithm and data
structure analysis. A pre-test given over the summer was used to establish
which class you were put into. According to the department, roughly one-third
of the class ended up in each one. I had no programming experience coming in,
so I was put in the first class.

The final course of that intro sequence was also the major fundamentals course
for one of the three tracks that the curriculum branched out to after the
first intro class, focusing on algorithms and their implementations. The other
two tracks focused on systems programming and mathematical interaction (via
functional programming).

Every student, regardless of their intro class, typically completes these
tracks by the end of their second year or early into their third year, which
opens up basically all of the 300- or 400-level specialization courses in the
department. Which is why the school doesn't need to focus on people with lots
of experience coming in--the structure of the curriculum means that everyone
gets to the same level of important fundamentals pretty quickly, and once
you've done that you get to branch out and specialize into whatever you want.
The more experienced newcomers just have more time to do that.

And anecdotally, the approach has definitely worked. I've got a great job
lined up starting this summer that I'm excited to start. I am not a woman so I
can't speak to its effectiveness in attracting women specifically, but in my
experience the school has done a great job accommodating a wide range of
experience levels.

~~~
pilom
As a CMU alumn, I have to add that part of the reason that the CS department
has the 3 levels is that most majors at the school require a programming
course.

I'd guess that your intro course had more non-CS majors in it than the other 2
freshmen courses which tend to have a higher proportion of CS majors.

------
moultano
I had a chance to talk to the undergraduate dean of SCS about #2. Essentially
they found that "geekiness" (as he described it) had no correlation with
performance in the program, but a huge correlation with gender.

~~~
Crito
I've recently been toying with the idea that the "brogrammer" trend is in
reality little more than a term used to vilify male programmers who, more than
anything else, share the common trait of having rejected "geek/nerd/gamer"
culture or fashion.

The term is male specific because female enrollment has been suppressed for
the past few decades, making males the most prominent members of just about
_any_ fashion/culture trend in tech. The term has become synonymous with
sexism because many _(but by no means all, or even most)_ "brogrammers" are
indeed sexist _(as are other programmers)_. Because "brogrammers" are
different, this sexism is recognized for what it is more frequently than
sexism from "non-bro programmers" _(who, for most programmers, are part of the
in-group)_.

If we stop selecting for _" geek/nerd/gamer"_, I think that we might see the
evaporation of the concept of "brogrammer" as a particularly problematic
gender specific trend.

 _(One of the assumptions that I make is that most people who are labeled as
"brogrammers" by others do not self-identify as "brogrammers".)_

~~~
Edmond
>If we stop selecting for "geek/nerd/gamer"

I think that is the key problem. I don't know if it is just a western cultural
issue but the association between social awkwardness and technical competence
is the real problem. My personal experience is that if you don't fit that
archetype people assume (erroneously) that you aren't technical enough.

This is a problem not just affecting women but men as well, as someone who's
highly technical but doesn't come across as "nerd/geek/gamer" people
universally assume I am not as competent, sometimes even when undeniable
evidence is present I get treated as a magician with a bag tricks :)

~~~
Crito
I've seen friends get labeled "brogrammer" just because they wore polo shirts
instead of t-shirts with gaming stuff printed on them, and because in
university they belonged to a fraternity instead of the anime club. These
people don't spend all day in the office doing kegstands, they work just as
hard and just as effectively as anybody else, but they are derisively labeled
"brogrammer" and the depth of their skill is routinely questioned.

Above a certain age, 30-35 or so I'd estimate, not being "nerd/geek/gamer"
seems to lose it's stigma as "family man" becomes a more common occurrence
(but of course with that comes age discrimination).

(I believe the tie-in to sexism is fairly complex. Selection for
"nerd/gamer/programmer" probably causes a gender imbalance in the industry,
but I think that genuine sexism and not just prejudice against
lifestyles/fashions also plays an important role. Evening out the gender
imbalance would likely have the effect of loosening prejudices against
lifestyles/fashions, even if those prejudices were the cause of the gender
imbalance in the first place. I believe the issues are related in a more
complex manner than _" one caused the other"_.)

~~~
Torgo
You have talked about who is labeled a brogrammer, but can you clarify who is
doing the calling? You seem to be saying it is the geeky types themselves. And
where are you geographically, roughly?

I am not in Silicon Valley. I spent the first 11 years of my career in the
Midwest in the corporate world where you had to dress professionally, didn't
get to put up posters in your cube or shoot each other with nerf guns, and
sexual harassment would get you instafired. Being a "brogrammer" would not fly
there.

For the last couple years I am surrounded by "geek" types and can wear a
t-shirt and jeans to work, but I still haven't seen any disdain for "non-geek"
types. The only place I hear the term "brogrammer" is here, Twitter and a
subset of the media, and it seems primarily by feminists/progressives. So my
experience is quite different from yours.

I am emphatically not saying it doesn't exist, I just wonder if it's a "thing"
once you get beyond Silicon Valley/Mountain View/San Francisco.

~~~
Crito
I've noticed it primarily in SF and Seattle. I've seen it to a limited extent
in Philadelphia, but it's been my observation that most tech jobs on the East
Coast have sufficiently strict dress codes to make lifestyles/hobbies
relatively non-apparent at first glance. _(the limited extent that I witnessed
it in Philadelphia was at a startup that I interviewed with. One of my "geek"
friends warned me that the startup was filled with "brogrammers")_.

Although the term "brogrammer" was not invented yet, I also witnessed it in
university on the East Coast, where CS kids in fraternities were frequently
given a hard time by other CS students.

It definitely is "geeks" doing most of the name calling, though the
twitter/SJW sphere has certainly adopted and perpetuated it as well.

------
xrctl
Um, how CMU:SCS has a gender ratio higher than average is because they accept
more women. In 2000 the acceptance rate for women was 39%, for men it was 9%
[1].

This is completely boring, MIT could make it so its CS class was 100% women if
it wanted to, and because loads of very intelligent people apply to MIT I am
sure that class of 100% women would do well. But, this is not a tactic that
your average school who struggles to get qualified applicants at all can
utilize.

[1]
[https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~lblum/PAPERS/women_in_computer_scien...](https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~lblum/PAPERS/women_in_computer_science.pdf)

~~~
cschmidt
I take it from your comment that you infer that it was 39% because they had
lower standards for women. Therefore, they are affirmative action babies who
shouldn't be there.

I think it is more likely that their outreach programs (through CS AP teacher
training etc.) that encouraged the best and brightest women to apply were
successful, so that the pool of women were significantly more qualified.

Also, I wonder what the more recent numbers look, as 2000 was a long time ago.

~~~
xrctl
> I think it is more likely that their outreach programs (through CS AP
> teacher training etc.) that encouraged the best and brightest women to apply
> were successful, so that the pool of women were significantly more
> qualified.

That is entirely implausible. Those straws are miles away, dude.

That could perhaps explain a 20% difference, not a 330% difference.

------
dandrews
See also: "How Harvey Mudd College Increased Its Percentage of Women in CS", a
ten-minute interview with Harvey Mudd's President, Dr. Maria Klawe.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ssh6ZcOorw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ssh6ZcOorw)

------
jzila
Prior to now, many of the approaches I'd seen targeted women specifically. The
tactics listed in this article instead focus on trying to abstract out what
could make a good developer _in the future_.

This is elegant to me because it approaches the problem in a bottom up way:
"how can we more equitably target candidates so that we don't miss potentially
great fits?", instead of top down: "how can we include more of these specific
groups in our candidate pool?"

------
rayiner
It's really wonderful to see schools like CMU lead the charge in this area,
and I hope industry gives them the support encourage them to keep pushing
forward. Programs like these will always be criticized as being "affirmative
action" but I think in the long run, industries are better for them. Industry
says we have a shortage of programmers, yet are content to maintain their
focus on the sorts of people, overwhelmingly men, who started dabbling with it
as teenagers. This is supremely short-sighted. It is in the interest of
industry to bring people into the talent pipeline who might not have had the
inclination, often for social or economic reasons, to spend their teenage
years "hacking" but who demonstrate aptitude and could be excellent
programmers if trained.

------
jamesbritt
The real test is in how many decide to stick with it.

Edit: the comment thread on the site discusses this.

------
heezo
There were 2 women in my class, my first year at CMU. Really helped me to
focus on my studies.

Anyway, it's hard to do better. I'm just glad that they are.

------
dengnan
No offence. But I would be more interested in how they increased diversity
without lowering the bar.

~~~
cschmidt
It sounds like the only thing they did with admissions was to not look at
previous programming experience as a major factor.

I was admitted to a Chemical Engineering college program, despite the fact
that I had no previous high school experience in fluid mechanics,
thermodynamics, and the rest. No one thought that was strange.

Why is CS so different that you have to be a hot-shot programmer before you
enter?

~~~
khawkins
CMU is a top tier school. Why should you deny a hot-shot programmer admission
for someone who has a passing fancy? Judging "potential" instead of a
candidate's past work and experience reeks of affirmative action.

~~~
ivanca
This. When you do something in the name of political correctness (and a
completely economically (and risk free) biased one - i.e. almost nobody cares
about the lack of female truck drivers) you still have to measure what are you
inflicting damage upon.

\- Is rejecting someone more fitted for this career path something good?

\- Are you assuming everything is a societal result and there are no
biological differences between the female/male psyche that makes them look for
different hobbies and careers?

\- It is know that women care more about socializing than men, and sitting in
front of a screen for countless hours is pretty much the opposite of that;
even when you work in a team, meetings are usually not something you look up
to.

~~~
sp332
But we're not going to be able to measure those things until we try it and
find out.

Also, many computer projects are done socially and aimed at socializing.
Isolation is an old stereotype.

