
I Am the Girl That STEM Lost - Impossible
https://medium.com/s/story/i-am-the-girl-that-stem-lost-923e6b93eeec
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daly
Bad at math?

My college roommate went to the public school in my town. I went to the
catholic school. He learned calc 1 and calc 2 before college. I had 2 weeks of
trig.

We were both math majors. He breezed through calc. I got a D in calc1, 2, and
3. I took the classes a second time.

Am I bad at math? Absolutely. Did I give up? No. I have a math degree and a
comp. sci. degree. I've been a programmer for nearly 50 years.

I have to read a math paper 3 times before I "get it". I have to read and
write programs in a new paradigm (e.g. haskell and functional programming)
before I "get it". I have to watch videos. What seems to take other people
minutes can cost me days of effort.

I read tech books every day. Every day for 50 years amounts to a lot of work.

STEM didn't lose you. You gave up.

You're going to live another 50 years. You can be in STEM.

Don't give up.

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jrnichols
This really came across as a story of a personal setback, but trying to
shoehorn in sexism somehow and really goes nowhere except for the "we need
more women in STEM"

"Without resources and support, it’s no wonder that girls in college aren’t
choosing STEM degrees."

What does that have to do with the author not doing well in math?

She then goes on to say we need to listen to girls, but at this point I think
the story has gone off the rails. She didn't do well in math, took an English
major instead, and isn't taking any of the free (probably women only) coding
boot camps or resources already being offered to her.

She's blaming sexism and "the system" for something that it sounds like she
can easily overcome and perhaps excel at.

As they always say.. you don't know until you try.

for the record, college math is what's holding me back from completing my
degree. I have also been bad (very bad) at math for many years. literal
anxiety over it. This isn't just a woman in STEM thing. As harsh as it might
sound, this is the real world. There aren't always hand holding gender
specific resources. If you want to do something, you have to take the steps to
do it.

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thanksDr
Another victim of abusive math classes.

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rgacote
At least in the US, I think there continues to be a concept that programming
is related to mathematics.

I remember discovering in college that there were languages like Snobol and
Lisp that had very little to do with numeric computation. Opened up a world of
possibilities.

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justtopost
Man, I feel left out of being an NBA star, but never learning to play, and
then complaining about it, doesen't help, even if you are short. You get
respect by trying and failing, not by failing basic prerequisites and
wistfully blaming the tech community.

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flatfilefan
“Math had always been hard for me.” How about an English major then?

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dang
Unless I'm reading it wrong, this is a personally nasty comment. Please don't
post those to HN. That's the kind of community we're trying not to be.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

