
Being a “dumb” girl in Computer Science - waffle_ss
http://rewritingthecode.com/2016/03/27/hello-world/
======
krstck
Full disclosure: I'm a working female software developer, blah blah blah...

> I want to be that girl who no one thought she could, who had all the odds
> against her, that everyone thought was dumb, and yet she becomes incredibly
> successful in computer science. Then I want to turn that success around and
> use it a pedestal to expose every wound, every failure, every painful
> vulnerability I have, even with my hands trembling, because that is what I
> believe is what motivates women and gives them the strength and personal
> recognition of ‘if she can do it, so can I’, which then lights the spark to
> explore the field and helps women find their inner-strength to go for it.

I think this is a great sentiment, but....and maybe I'm just not hanging out
in the right parts of the internet or whatever...but I see women writing about
these meta-topics of "being a female programmer" far, far more often than any
actual technical aspect. Maybe they just aren't upvoted to the top of HN or
r/programming, heh. I've had a hard time articulating why I feel so prickly
about promoting specifically "getting more women into tech", because I feel
like it's starting to become this giant show pony. I think it's great that
this lady is going into this field, but I feel really weird about this
characterization that CS is supposed to be so super scary and women need
special hand-holding and encouragement to attempt it.

I started programming when I was a kid because I wanted to make stuff. Nobody
told me it was supposed to be hard or supposed to be for boys or whatever. I
think we're doing a huge disservice by promoting this idea that programming is
some super elusive thing - if we want more women in programming, then let's
talk about how cool it is to build stuff, instead of how we can be role models
or whatever. Just the opinion of one "woman in tech", I don't speak for anyone
else but myself.

~~~
m4x
> if we want more women in programming, then let's talk about how cool it is
> to build stuff

I really agree with this.

Girls just don't seem to be interested in programming when they are young.

Then they go to university, and largely avoid CS because a) they haven't
developed any prior interest in it and b) it is perceived as a difficult and
male-dominated field.

The ones who do enrol in a CS course often struggle because it's their first
foray into programming and they aren't familiar with any of the concepts,
unlike many of their male peers who have done it before and cruise through all
the 100 level courses

If we want to see more women in CS, get them interested at a younger age and
suddenly CS will seem more appealing and they will find it just as easy as the
other experienced students.

We need to show girls that programming is a good outlet for their creativity
and foster their interest at a younger age

~~~
humanrebar
> it is perceived as a difficult

It is difficult. Why would that impression be problematic?

~~~
naasking
Expertise in computer science probably isn't intrinsically more difficult than
any other field, like medicine which now has more women than men.

~~~
humanrebar
Sure. But would it make sense to get women interested in medicine by
downplaying how difficult it is?

------
matt_wulfeck
> When he started to explain the assignment it quickly became aware that I
> wasn’t grasping a thing he was saying. He tried again, and again, and again
> to explain basic concepts to me. He started to become visibly frustrated and
> impatient with my lack of understanding and everyone in the room kept
> looking at us.

This is sort of the unspoken problem in computer science. Most people aren't
doing it for the first time. It's not uncommon for many people to have started
programming on their own in middle school or even earlier. First year computer
science is more of a refresher.

Then there's everyone else starting an entry-level class as beginners and
getting completely demolished. "How does everyone get this so much better and
faster than me?" The answer is because they're not beginners.

~~~
Trill-I-Am
Do you think it's possible to major in computer science in college if you have
absolutely no prior experience in programming?

~~~
bunkat
Of course it's possible but it seems a little odd. Programming is something
that anybody can do with a very modest investment. If you're interested in
programming, seems strange to have absolutely no prior experience before
getting to college.

It's sort of like deciding to be a music major when you've never played an
instrument before. How do you know if you even enjoy it before starting down
the long path to getting a degree in it?

~~~
jimmaswell
>Programming is something that anybody can do with a very modest investment.

That's highly debatable. A lot of people including my old compsci professor
seem to believe it's largely something someone either can learn to understand
or can't. I've noticed myself that students seemed to either "get" programming
or not, both in a class I took in high school and the compsci class at my
first college. This article on the issue is worth reading:
[http://blog.codinghorror.com/separating-programming-sheep-
fr...](http://blog.codinghorror.com/separating-programming-sheep-from-non-
programming-goats/)

~~~
DanBC
The author of the study linked in that blog has retracted it and apologised
for it and said he was wrong.

[http://retractionwatch.com/2014/07/18/the-camel-doesnt-
have-...](http://retractionwatch.com/2014/07/18/the-camel-doesnt-have-two-
humps-programming-aptitude-test-canned-for-overzealous-conclusion/)

~~~
douche
It'd be good to have another large-scale study to try to replicate, because,
while the results where, err, politically incorrect, they fit too well with
what an extremely large number of people have observed...

------
bbcbasic
This isn't gender specific. As a guy I have worked in teams where asking for
help is terrifying. To the point I stared at code for hours lest I ask how the
uber-abstraction and hack soup worked.

~~~
cookiecaper
Gender and race are hot-button topics because those who claim to be victims of
discrimination always fall back to an impossible-to-falsify assumption of
impure intentions, if not in the individual specifically, in the amorphous
"institution" behind "institutional bigotry". Every time someone brings it up,
the discussion is one person saying "I bet that wouldn't have happened if the
victim were [white/male]!", another person saying "Uh, I think it would've
happened", and the original person saying "Well you're just ignorant", and
then a cacophony of voices supporting or opposing the side they're more
inclined to agree with, seemingly never calling out the absurdity or futility
of it.

This happened with me in real life when I expressed some questions about the
veracity of the clock kid case to an associate. "You think that [being charged
with possessing a hoax explosive device] would've happened to a white kid?!"
\- "Uh, yeah. I was almost arrested for installing VNC on the school
computers..." \- "That's such an ignorant white thing to say!" No way to win.

Maybe we can stop allowing these conversations here, because this is an
infinite loop that I don't see us escaping any time soon.

~~~
natrius
There are plenty of things worth discussing that aren't falsifiable. There's
also plenty of actual data related to those unfalsifiable anecdotes.

Individual instances of biased decision-making are impossible to prove, but
that doesn't mean we should stop bringing up the possibility. I'm sure you
check yourself against common biases when you think they might be relevant.
Prejudice is a common bias, and we should keep talking about it.

~~~
belorn
We should keep talking about it, but there isn't much of an point when the
discussion is limited to fit existing biases.

A while back I read a study that found that work culture inside a company is
primarily made from gender culture if a single gender become dominant. The
minority gender, be that male or female, then has to choose between assimilate
or leave. Both men and women tend to chose the later option, which result in
profession becoming more homogenic in regards to gender. Only work in
professional environments where there is a fairly equal amount of both genders
do unique work cultures become dominant.

But that model does not fit common biases. It models _both_ women and men as
pushing each other out and discriminate against each other. As such, we don't
see such models being discussed, and we don't talk about it. The only model
that fits in our existing biases is men as the eternal aggressor and women as
the eternal victim, and there isn't much worth to discuss within that limited
space that hasn't been discussed to death already.

~~~
natrius
This seems to be a case of the "all lives matter" fallacy. It's true that the
men-bad-women-good bias is harmful. It just doesn't strike me as worth
spending much effort on compared to the biases that are making our industry
significantly harder for people to succeed in. I'll start paying attention to
other issues when I can't remember the last time I worked on a ten person,
single gender team of engineers.

~~~
belorn
Which results in the predictable model where the underlaying causes are
ignored, the problem remains, and thus: There is common biases, but we should
not keep talking about it if we aren't willing to fix our biases.

If you don't want 10 person teams with the same gender, ask yourself this: why
has those men being pushed to work there and excluded elsewhere? Why are women
being excluded to work there and pushed elsewhere?

The Swedish institution of education made a report that noted that as gender
roles are being made more equal, work titles has gotten more gendered in the
process. The correlation seem to imply that men and women project gender roles
onto work as an reaction to having their gender roles being made less distinct
in home and society at large.

The same report also noted than in 15 years of efforts to get women to take up
more male typical classes like engineering, only very minor progress has been
made. No efforts (their exact wording) has been made to make men go to areas
dominated by women, and the report predict that no major change in gender
equality in education is going to occur until both genders starts to compete
to get into classes dominated by the other gender. You need to pressure both
side at the same time in order for gender lines to break.

But again, people aren't really interested to talk about this since it doesn't
match current biases. It easier to just assume that men are evil, women
victims, and try to fix problems under those assumptions. Next time you say
that "There are plenty of things worth discussing", here was a explanation why
there won't be a worthwhile discussion.

~~~
nickonline
Do you know what that report is called?

~~~
belorn
I bookmarked it, and I can post it tomorrow when I get back to that computer.

~~~
belorn
[https://sverigesradio.se/diverse/appdata/isidor/files/95/618...](https://sverigesradio.se/diverse/appdata/isidor/files/95/6180.pdf)

I can strongly recommend page 33 if you don't have time to read the whole
thing. If you do have time however, it's references are as significant as the
report itself. I also strongly recommend reading some anecdotal stories from
people that are minority in professions where the gender inequality is 90%:10%
and over.

------
qopp
To offer a counter point, why does the girl seem like she needs or wants
someone to guide her along in each class?

Asking people to help is one resource, but so is reading the textbook, doing
introduction tutorials, looking stuff up online, etc. The author doesn't
mention she spent time doing these sorts of activities.

> Not only that, but other people in the room jumped in to help explain

I've definitely seen guys line up to help people in labs.

Maybe the take-away is that CS is traditionally taught in a very individual
way and should be more group-oriented.

~~~
kibwen

      > why does the girl seem like she needs or wants someone 
      > to guide her along in each class
    

Probably for the same reason that people enjoy personal assistance with
questions on IRC or discussion forums. Sometimes you literally don't know
enough to know what you don't know well enough to know where or how to look it
up.

~~~
rickhanlonii
That seems like a cop out to me. Textbooks are by far the best resource you
have available for your class work and even though they take the most effort,
they tell you exactly what you need to know enough to know what you don't
know.

~~~
laughinghan
Sorry, what? Literally the first time I've heard anyone claim that textbooks
are better than in-person one-on-one tutoring by an educator, which is what
we're comparing to, right? (Getting help in-person from the TA.)

Like sure, certain exercises may be more ideal with a group of peers, or may
be more ideal if the student does it while the instructor stays hands-off; but
if you had to pick just one of all the possible ways to learn something, until
I read this comment I thought it was quite universal that everyone would say
yeah, one-on-one in-person tutoring with someone trained in the subject matter
is the single best way to learn something. Which is why, in spite of being the
most expensive option, tutoring is still a thriving industry.

~~~
easytiger
> Sorry, what? Literally the first time I've heard anyone claim that textbooks
> are better than in-person one-on-one tutoring by an educator, which is what
> we're comparing to, right? (Getting help in-person from the TA.)

A huge number of software developers are autodidacts. The implication is you
don't know many people.

~~~
laughinghan
I know plenty of autodidacts, and arguably was one. I'm almost certain not a
single one would say that if they could've afforded to be tutored one-on-one
instead of reading on their own, they would've still chosen reading on their
own instead. They learned from textbooks because the cost and inconvenience of
tutoring was prohibitive, not because they're like "pffft, the tutor was just
_slowing me down_ , in the time spent with them I would've learned way more
from a textbook".

~~~
reitanqild
OK, here is one counterpoint.

I actively do avoid asking questions even when it is free.

Not only in computing. I really did not do to well on piano lessons. My
siblings who where just taught the basics (IIRC) and then left to their own
ended up playing the piano (and other instruments) because it was fun.

Of course in computing this is reinforced from time to time by e.g.:

\- by visiting stackoverflow and see how many (IIRC again) of the questions
that has helped me most are closed as not constructive,

\- or by a colleague who seems they will use any opportunity to talk about
something being junior-level stuff and then go on to waste a lot of everyones
time by rewriting the whole thing.

------
Godel_unicode
Here's the thing. While there are absolutely some pervasive, sneakily awful
female-specific problems in computer science, this is emphatically not one of
them. The experience described in this article has exactly nothing to do with
being a woman.

Computer science is an extremely difficult subject, and everyone sucks really
hard at it when they're getting started (or very shortly thereafter). That
experience is universal to computer scientists. I will absolutely guarantee
you that there were plenty of men in that class who were going through the
exact same thing at some point in their academic career, if not right then.

The Problem in computer science education is a combination of the spotlight
problem (once you know something, especially something abstract, it's hard to
imagine what it's like to not know it) and the No True Scotsman problem (if
you ever struggle with anything in computer science then you'll never be a
Real computer scientist).

In situations like this, where a large percentage of the population is at a
fragile stage of development, we need to be very clear that we're addressing
the actual core problem. Namely, that everyone feels that they're the dumb one
in a room full of brilliant effortlessly successful people, and that if the
coursework is not easy and a little boring you should quit because it only
gets worse from here.

This needs to be a large chunk of lecture time early in the semester. You are
going to hit The Wall. Everyone does, there's no shame in it. When (not if)
you do, ask for help. Say "I don't know". This is an important life skill, and
a large part of being a functioning adult.

~~~
brational
> Namely, that everyone feels that they're the dumb one in a room full of
> brilliant effortlessly successful people, and that if the coursework is not
> easy and a little boring you should quit because it only gets worse from
> here.

So I self-learned CS, my degrees were in applied math, and it was similar in
the math world. Although more like:

"everyone feels that they're the dumb one in a room full of other dumb ones...
"

But where I studied, we did receive that sort of lecture early on. That "a
wall" as you've described it is normal, get used to it.

It's served me well, being comfortable with "not knowing" something. You could
argue that it's something every student of ANY subject should be told but I
guess many subjects are easy enough that simply working at X% effort is enough
to never get stumped.

------
cs2818
I guess I don't fully understand the scenario being described. She writes that
the T.A. tried to explain "again, and again, and again", then after she said
"I DON’T UNDERSTAND", he was "eager to help us".

It seemed like the T.A. was already aware she wasn't grasping the concept
because he explained it repetitively. I'm just wondering what feedback she was
giving up until that point.

Regardless, clear communication from everyone in any learning setting is
essential. Saying "I don't know" and "I don't understand" are a huge part of
that.

~~~
DigitalJack
I think the point she was making was being very public about the fact she
didn't understand. Stating it loudly, rather than sheepishly speaking with the
TA and being ashamed.

Being upfront about it and basically letting everyone in the room know she was
having a problem broke the ice. There can be a palpable pressure in social
situations to conform, like being in a library... the silence of everyone
almost has a presence of its own.

In a computer lab, it can be like that. Who knows why the TA changed their
tune, maybe they were themselves shamed by their own lack of ability to convey
understanding. But for the rest of the lab, once the taboo was broken,
apparently the innate desire many people have to lend a hand surfaced.

I can't say why, I wasn't there, but in this case it worked out. People act
differently in the anonymity of a crowd, and that is what you basically have
in a hushed lab environment. Her plea for help / public admittance of
vulnerability was apparently enough to shatter the crowd psychology and the
innate desire of individuals to help other individuals came forward.

------
achow
> _I would like to create learning software that emphasizes pride in failure
> over success. That the end is not the goal – continuous effort to try again
> and fail again, and try again and fail again is._

This reminds me of a study by Claudia M. Mueller and Carol S. Dweck of
Columbia University - ‘Praise for Intelligence Can Undermine Children's
Motivation and Performance’ [1].

They said praise for the effort and not results.

They found that children who were praised for their intelligence, as compared
to their effort, became overly focused on results. Following a failure, these
same children persisted less, showed less enjoyment, attributed their failure
to a lack of ability (which they believed they could not change), and
performed poorly in future achievement efforts.

Children praised for effort chose problems that promised increased learning,
they had continued interest in mastery by preferring to receive strategy-
related information.

[1] PDF:
[https://psychology.stanford.edu/sites/all/files/Intelligence...](https://psychology.stanford.edu/sites/all/files/Intelligence%20Praise%20Can%20Undermine%20Motivation%20and%20Performance_0.pdf)

~~~
visarga
Praise is just a factor, and not even the most important one. You usually
won't turn a lazy child successful by just switching from praising
intelligence to praising effort. If the child is hardened in his/her intention
to avoid effort, then you can't reach them with or without praise, until they
develop an internal motivation. Nowadays school work has to compete with
mobile games and other super addictive stuff that just overflows on the
internet.

------
brad0
Great post.

A good thing to remember: no one knows what the hell they're doing, no matter
what stage of life they're in.

~~~
bbcbasic
Spoken like a true parent

~~~
jamiepenney
Not to be that guy, but I've become a lot more comfortable with not knowing
what the hell I am doing since I had a kid. Most people are winging it, you
just don't get to see their failures.

~~~
taneq
As a counterpoint, I've become far more worried about life in general since I
realised that medical and legal professionals are just winging it too.

~~~
brational
Well, doctors are just "practicing medicine" after all...

------
slavik81
> The T.A.’s had to explain over, and over, and over again the simplest
> concepts.

As a TA, I want to say that this is literally my job. If that's what it takes,
then that's what it takes. My entire purpose is to help students. If other
people need my help, I might be limited in the amount of time I can spend, but
I'll give you every bit of help I can in the time I have.

When I was an undergraduate, I worried about the TA judging me for not knowing
things. I'd even skip tutorials if I was too far behind. Now as a TA, that
seems so silly. My goal is to just get you the best mark I can, regardless of
where you're starting from.

Anyways, this was a well-written post. Lots of great stuff in there. I think
the issues it touches on are also something a lot of students can relate to.

I would caution, though, there's also 'that guy' who speaks instead of
thinking. There is a balance to be struck. In lectures, at least. Listen,
think, ask.

~~~
adwn
You say:

> _As a TA, I want to say that this is literally my job. If that 's what it
> takes, then that's what it takes. My entire purpose is to help students._

And:

> _If other people need my help, I might be limited in the amount of time I
> can spend, but I 'll give you every bit of help I can in the time I have._

But that's the point – you don't have infinite time. I think it's unfair to
the faster to students if the majority of your time is spent on the slowest
ones. Unless it's your explicit goal to teach the lowest common denominator,
the better students also have a right to get help and support in their
learning.

~~~
Latty
Sure, but that assumes that the extra time being taken here came at the
expense of someone else's time. The original article showed two people gaining
from this at the same time, at least.

If they require more time than can be allocated and it cuts into time other
students need, then alternative arrangements need to start being made, sure.
Just assuming that taking more time than others to get something makes you
unworthy of getting that help isn't right.

------
rickhanlonii
I'm sorry, but I think this just has to do with bad study habits. I may be
wildly off base here (I don't know the author's habits) I just have the quotes
in the article:

> I just couldn’t understand a word that the teacher was saying

> T.A.’s had to explain over, and over, and over again the simplest concepts

> I wasn’t grasping a thing he was saying

> He tried again, and again, and again to explain basic concepts to me

> I DON’T UNDERSTAND.

As a student, understanding terms and basic concepts is _your_ responsibility.
The professor and TA's are there to enhance and solidify the basic concepts,
they're not there to explain basic concepts to you over and over again until
you get it. That's the job of reading and studying. If you don't do the
reading and study the material you need to know _before_ the class it's
covered in, then of course you won't understand what the professor is on about
and of course you'll fall behind. You're starting from behind and don't have
any way to catch up.

I saw this over and over as both a TA, teacher, and classmate. Lecture is not
the time to learn terms and concepts for the first time. Lecture is the time
to connect newly learned terms and concepts to your existing knowledge and
reinforce and enlighten it. If you get to the class on class instantiation and
you don't know what a constructor is already then you're going to have a bad
time--and you should.

So you must study beforehand and you just have to study it until you know it.
I appreciate that it's harder for some than others, and commend the author for
aspiring to inspire, but at some point there needs to be some personal
responsibility.

~~~
dgacmu
Let me gently disagree with you. First, much of what she comments on (TAs,
etc.) happens in recitations or office hours, which _are_ the time to go over
things until they're clear. (She mentions this: "Being hopelessly lost in
lab"). Labs are typically smaller and are often taught by less-experienced
people - grad students or even senior undergrads.

Second, while it's possible to take it too far, I love it when students are
forthright about not getting it, even in the primary lecture session. First,
because for every student who asks the question, there are a dozen sitting
there being quietly confused -- and often feeling like crap about it (c.f.,
impostor syndrome). Second, because it gives me an excuse to explain the same
concept in a different way -- which may reach some of the _other_ dozen
students who incorrectly think they get it, and won't figure out they've
missed something until they sit down to do the homework. And third, because
that's what learning is about - learning the things you don't know. Any
experienced teacher should be able to defer when the questions are getting in
the way of the material, and _holy cow_ is it better to have a classroom of
students asking you to explain something than to have a bunch of drooling
post-lunch zombies.

Your point about when to study & learn things depends a lot on the class. In
my intro class, I don't expect the students to have done the reading
beforehand, because we don't have any reading. I expect them to have worked
through all of the stuff resulting from the previous lecture, however. Other
classes operate in the way you mention. But it varies highly from class to
class.

The author _was_ taking personal responsibility by being forthright about what
she was having a hard time understanding. It's harder to do than it seems.

~~~
rickhanlonii
I think we agree but differ in how we perceive the author's level of
understanding.

I didn't mean to imply that there should be no questions in lecture or that
students should understand everything by lecture. I also should have commended
the author for getting TA help, though I've noticed that students do this as a
replacement for studying rather than a supplement--which can fuel learned
hopelessness (i.e. "I'm trying so hard and just can't get it").

But I still learn towards bad study habits here. The author felt so helpless
that they screamed "I DON'T UNDERSTAND" in the middle of lab. I think that if
you're at that point then there's something deeper going on there then just
needing more help/clarification and in my experience that has to do with poor
study habits.

It's interesting that you don't assign reading before hand in your intro
class. If I were taking that class, I would read ahead any way. What advantage
do you think your students get by _not_ having an opportunity to look over
terms and concepts before you discuss them in lecture?

~~~
dgacmu
It's also possible that it was the scenario others have mentioned -- there's a
_very_ wide range of incoming abilities in intro cs classes, from complete
newbies to high school students who could out-program half of the HN crew.
(Seriously - I had one working for me for the summer before he started as a
freshman at Berkeley who was the equal of many Google engineers when it comes
to C++. Yes, quite unusual, but there's at least one such person.) As a
consequence, it can be easy to lose 20+% of the class, and when they get lost
early in intro classes, they _stay_ lost, because the concepts build upon each
other so rapidly.

Oftentimes, the students don't even realize they're lost until a few weeks
later, and by then, it's a big problem. I've seen this a lot - a large amount
of our TA effort is dedicated to helping bring those students forward once the
"oh shit" moment happens.

Why no reading:

(a) Haven't found a book worth its salt for the class. We have lots of
optional texts that they can use, and we encourage students who want to read
ahead to peruse How to Think Like a Computer Scientist (python).

(b) It's mostly a structure thing. 15-112 (www.cs.cmu.edu/~112) is at present
structured as "go to class, get the big picture view and some details, and
then go practice the living daylights out of it afterwords". It's very
effective for students new to CS. I can't claim credit for it - my many-
awards-winning-astoundingly-beloved colleagues Mark Stehlik and David Kosbie
created the beast. The core of it is that students just learning CS need to
get the "muscle memory" down so that when you tell them to implement merge
sort, they don't spend time puzzling out how to append an item to a list. So
the focus of the class is a fairly daunting amount of practice, in the form of
exercises, homeworks, and quizzes.

It's a truly brutal class, FWIW, but the students come out of it having
accomplished something really amazing. Here's a vide of some of the project
highlights from last semester -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkiK_cqSOwI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkiK_cqSOwI)
. Keep in mind that these are projects by people who, in many cases, have
never programmed before the start of the semester. Full project gallery is
[http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~112/gallery.html](http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~112/gallery.html)

~~~
vehementi
With such a wild variance of incoming skill levels, what is the way to make
lectures efficient? I know this isn't a new problem but I see it frequently in
training / classes in the industry where things are 10-100x too slow for some
people, while others are lost. There is clearly a failure in assigning people
to the correct course level (or offering courses at appropriate granularity),
but the more scalable thing I see is offline learning where you first check
out slides, then check out accompanying documentation / videos, then check
google or IRC, and as a last resort you launch the nuclear option of stopping
your life for 2-16 hours to sit in a room and learn synchronously. Is anywhere
innovating like this?

------
keypusher
While this is a very moving story and I hope the author finds a rewarding
career in CS, one big problem I have with this is that there is going to come
a point in time where she has to figure out a hard problem on her own. It
might be in grad school, it might be on the job, or in an interview, or for a
side project. But there is going to come a time when there's a very difficult
problem to solve and there is nobody there to turn to for advice because you
are doing something new. And if you haven't built up the resources to research
the problem on your own and work it out, that might be a very difficult
experience.

~~~
Latty
Sure, but if you fail at the beginning, how are you meant to build that skill?

If the author continued to require in-depth explanations of the core concepts
again and again over the entire length of their education, sure, that could be
an issue. The reality is that over time, most people are going to learn how to
approach the issue, how to best self-teach, etc... and get past it.

------
sgentle
I have found that embracing being dumb can be very useful even later on. I
don't struggle with programming anymore, to the point where that "out of my
depth" feeling is surprising and scary.

Occasionally I run into some new concept I have no experience with and I sit
there staring at it like an idiot thinking "why do I not get this?" It takes a
little while to remember that I'm comparing many years of experience and study
to something I just started learning, and the feeling of being overwhelmed is
natural.

I suspect many people get used to feeling competent once they've developed
competence in one area. The problem is that, as described in the article, the
need to feel competent gets in the way of developing competence in anything
new.

I think one reason children learn so well is that they haven't yet developed
competence in any area, so it's hard for them to expect competence in every
area. I have no end of admiration for the way a child will look you dead in
the eye and say "I don't know what that means" like it's the most natural
thing in the world.

------
yorkvillemint
It seems like the author is at risk of breaking an arm patting herself on the
back too hard. Yes, computer science can be a hard field. There are many hard
fields. These require hard work. Sometimes you don't understand the material
in class. Sometimes you need to work really hard. Sometimes you feel silly or
need to ask your prickly, overworked TA a bunch of questions when he or she
would probably rather be doing other things. I'm not sure why the author seems
to think this makes her deserving of special commendation, or what her
experiences have to do with gender, but most of all the incredibly self-
serving, west-wing-horn-section-playing-in-the-background tone in which this
piece is written really grinds my gears.

~~~
wonnage
Lemme guess, you got by without needing a lot of handholding and now watching
this girl pat herself on the back for figuring out how to get tons of help
while your accomplishment goes unheralded has you rattled?

~~~
leshow
or he just read the story and that's his opinion of the situation. i feel the
same way and i didn't have an easy time in school.

------
deadowl
I'm particularly infamous among my peers for asking questions, and most of the
time I'm not asking on my own behalf. Asking a question because you don't
understand is what you can do for yourself. Asking a question because you
don't expect others to understand is something more.

This pretty much applies to all disciplines, particularly when a subgroup of
people are more likely to feel intimidated by the learning environment.

~~~
matt_wulfeck
That sounds dangerously close to "asking a question because you want to look
smart"

I like people like you in principle, but not in meetings.

~~~
tdfx
I can't speak for OP but I would say asking somewhat obvious questions and
making peoples' mental gears go through the effort of thinking things through
has been beneficial for me. There is a guy on our team, possibly the smartest
one, who constantly asks what could initially be construed as "dumb
questions", only to later uncover some flaw in our reasoning or potential
pitfall we hadn't thought of. I've come to deeply appreciate his dumb
questions.

~~~
csense
It's the same principle as rubber duck debugging: It's harder to take
shortcuts in your reasoning when you're trying to explain something.

------
lotharbot
I wonder if about 10 years from now, we're going to see a lot more young women
entering CS and similarly technical majors, and sticking with it through a
degree and a career, because they've grown up watching Twilight Sparkle and
the other ponies expressing vulnerability -- "I don't understand" and "I need
help" and similar sentiments.

I don't think girls necessarily need mentors they can identify with (which,
for many girls, means "women") in their exact chosen fields, in order to
choose those fields. But I do think they need mentors they can identify with
who display the character traits needed to be successful in those fields --
the sort of confidence and perseverance expressed in this article.

------
Nr7
I like the article, but one thing caught my eye there.

"Right then and there, I said loud, confidently, and clearly so everyone in
the room could hear me, “I DON’T UNDERSTAND.”"

I don't understand why this would make people more eager to help you. If I was
trying to explain something to someone and they started to raise their voice,
I would just get irritated and probably refuse to help anymore. But then again
I have to admit that I'm not always the most patient person in the world.

~~~
Latty
I think you are reading a more hostile tone into that - I read it more as a
slow paced, clear 'I. Don't. Understand.' \- not shouting in the guy's face -
to try and get the point across that they didn't get the core concept, and the
explanations being given were not helpful. I could see how that would cause
you to shift your attempt to another tack, see more success and therefore the
explained scenario.

------
glangdale
It's difficult to separate out the all-important "I did/didn't spend a bunch
of time in my teens programming" factor, and if she is getting some attention
to fix the _temporary_ deficit that this causes, so much the better. As
someone else points out, a lot of people come into CS with a huge head start
(often one that stops working some point in 2nd or 3rd year, in my experience
on both sides of the classroom).

The question becomes: when does the strategy of being the one person in the
class saying "I don't understand. Please explain again/better" start to be
problematic? When you're still consuming 40% of the attention of your TAs in a
2nd or 3rd year course? When you're asking questions about things all of the
rest of the class understands and things are grinding to a halt for everyone
else? When you're the team member who needs someone else to design your
algorithm for you for every single task? There has to be an end to it
somewhere.

~~~
douche
I have been in classes with that person that asks questions constantly,
because they "don't understand". After a half-dozen sessions, you're about
ready to chuck your laptop at the back of their head. Sure, dude, suck up 25%
of the lecture time asking questions about things your should understand if
you read the assigned reading. It's not like the other 40 people in this class
aren't paying through the nose to be here - take your damned questions
offline, and let the professor give their lecture, so we might actually be
able to cover the material we're here to cover.

------
aklemm
This is an excellent story. Really getting over the fear of ignorance and
learning to manage how much the opinions of others get in our way are real
life improvements.

~~~
trill1
Very true. I tried to jump into some higher-level math classes in college
after finishing my major, and though I didn't completely fail, I would have
learned much more if I had gotten over my fear of looking "dumb" by asking
basic questions, or by talking to the professors during office hours.

------
KaiserPro
Neatly sidestepping the gender issue (not understanding is non-gender
specific)

Publicly saying I don't understand, in a room full of people that _appear_ to
understand is incredibly difficult. However clearly knowing your limits, and
crucially being honest about them makes you a much better programmer.

There is nothing worse than someone who bullshits or FUDs they way through
things. Most arguments on t'internet/programming office can be summed up as:

Person 1: I don't think this is a good idea Person 2: _This is an attack on my
knowledge_ LIES YOU ARE RUBBISH, HERE IS SOME FACTS, SOME OF WHICH ARE MADE
UP/OVERHEARD etc etc etc.

More people need to say "I don't understand" women or not.

------
JDiculous
Why do women in CS constantly seem to feel the need to tell everybody else
they're a woman? Nobody cares.

~~~
junto
> Why do women in CS constantly seem to feel the need to tell everybody else
> they're a woman? Nobody cares.

Because there is a fair amount of inherent sexism in many companies when it
comes to female programmers.

My ex was the brightest (by a long way) on our undergraduate CompSci course.
She topped the class of 250 students and got a 1st with honours. She received
one of the highest grades in the department's history.

She was invited to start a Phd directly after the BSc. No masters was
required. The university could see her potential and decided to embrace it.
She published a number of papers related to script and language identification
from document images, primarily focused on Asian writing systems.

After her Phd she went to work for a large US automotive company. It was a
nightmare for her. Shitty sexist comments on a daily basis. A real toxic work
environment and after 1.5 years she quit. She had no desire to go back into
job in computer science.

To me that is a huge waste of talent and resource.

~~~
tdkl
So she just gave up and threw 30 years of her life down the drain ? Where's
the persistence ?

It's like "geeks" weren't ever ridiculed and harassed decades ago, before CS
got "trendy and cool".

That's also a price of equality, sometimes you just eat shit at a certain job.

~~~
CrystalCuckoo
> > Shitty sexist comments on a daily basis. A real toxic work environment

> That's also a price of equality, sometimes you just eat shit at a certain
> job.

You can't be serious. Not only is sexism the opposite of your supposed
equality, it should _never_ be tolerated in the workplace.

------
micahbright
"I strongly believe that the continued and constant emphasis in taking pride
in failure is EXACTLY what women need to be exposed to..."

I'm gonna disagree. It seems like you were so close to understanding "the
secret sauce". I'll lay it out for you explicitly: Learning requires humility.
You succeeded because you had the humility to admit you weren't understanding,
not because of pride.

------
bobbles
Who would have thought that asking for help in class would help you out

~~~
chroma
For many students, it's not easy to be the first one to speak up. It
interrupts the lecture and tells everyone you don't know what's going on. Of
course, a _lot_ of people might be just as lost as you, but none of them can
be sure that others are lost.

~~~
imron
I used to ask loads of questions during lectures - feedback I got from my
classmates was half saying "thanks for asking the question, I was wondering
about that too" and the other half was "why do you ask soo many questions".

I just liked making sure I understood things properly.

------
Artoemius
It's almost as if there are two separate types of people. People who learn by
reading books and people who learn by asking questions. They do not always
understand each other and maybe it's bad.

However, I can attest that reading books (also, googling these days) and never
asking basic questions is a perfectly valid way to learn.

------
shruubi
From experience, I can say that university is a place that creates an
atmosphere of fear in asking questions.

Ask a question in a lecture? The 100+ other people in the room are now staring
at you like you're an idiot, despite the fact that most probably have the same
question.

Ask for clarification on something the lecturer said? You've interrupted their
flow now, and want you to sit down, shut up and ask after class.

Go to ask after class? 12 other people have questions they were too afraid to
ask during class or couldn't and the lecturer doesn't have time to attend to
all of you, and tells you to send them an email they won't read.

Ask a TA? Most of them are overworked and underappreciated which leads to them
having a very low tolerance for "I don't understand" questions, which can lead
to a brush-off answer like "just re-read the lecture material."

Ask other students? They either don't know themselves or cannot explain it in
an appropriate or correct manner, or simply cannot be bothered to help you
because "this is too easy, why don't you get it!?"

Now of course, not every lecturer/TA is like this, and I had some wonderfully
helpful and open teachers while I was in university, however, both myself and
other people I know from across many different schools have had numerous
experiences like this.

And here's the other thing, as a student I've been guilty of doing the exact
things I describe above, either out of arrogance or simply down to the fact
that I was slammed with other classes I just didn't have the time or patience
to help others. Is it something I am proud of? Of course not, looking back now
I can safely say I was a dick.

It gets even worse for women, when you differ from the majority of others in
your class simply by genetics, it creates a feeling of not wanting to stand
out or give other people a reason on top of their sub-conscious bias to think
you "don't belong here" or "aren't as good as the rest of us."

~~~
cyphar
> Ask a question in a lecture? The 100+ other people in the room are now
> staring at you like you're an idiot, despite the fact that most probably
> have the same question.

I always ask the question anyway. The lecturers don't mind answering questions
-- they're there to teach you (though since I talk to them outside lectures, I
might have a different view of how lecturers feel about students). Even if
it's a dumb question, just ask. People who judge you for asking a question are
assholes and aren't worth your time.

~~~
shruubi
See, I agree with you, but look at it from the average person - they now have
to stand up in front of a crowd which will probably freak them out due to
public speaking, plus the self-consciousness of being the odd-one out in a
room full of your peers plus the embarrassment of interrupting the lecturer
can compound into a situation that most people would rather avoid.

And yes, there are lecturers who don't mind answering questions, but there are
very few students who have never met the grumpy, tenured "I don't give a fuck,
I lost faith/hope a long time ago" professor who will go out of their way to
make sure they aren't bothered with questions while they talk.

------
euske
As a teacher, a bigger problem that I have is not that people don't understand
it, but that people _don 't care_ when they don't understand it. Many students
seem to be just attending to a class because of peer pressure or something.
They can just glide it when it doesn't click. If you feel sad when you don't
understand something, I'd say you're already very motivated.

Very rarely, a teacher can press a student's button to make them actually
interested in the subject (or anything related to the subject), but I feel
this mostly happens only randomly.

------
jondubois
People are scared to sound stupid but there is no stupid question. Even after
10 years of software engineering, I still learn new things everyday.

Whenever I join a new company, I'm the dumbest person there at the
beginning... Until the next recruit arrives :)

Putting yourself in the position of always being the dumbest person in the
room is the smartest thing you can do.

You never want to be the smartest person in the room... EVER. Sure, it feels
great, but you don't learn anything.

By always putting yourself in difficult situations, you become more adaptable
and better rounded as an engineer.

------
Cthulhu_
Disregarding gender, I think this story is more about people that weren't into
computers and tech trying to get into it. Comparing it with my own experience,
my dad got our first computer when I was 3, we grew up with it; I got computer
basics (besides what I already knew by then) and skills like typing between
ages 12-16; I learned how computer hardware and software and operating systems
and networks and such worked age 16-19 in school, then at the end of that
started with basic software development, which was another (bachelor degree)
education from age 19-23.

I don't know what exact path the author followed, but judging by the opening
paragraphs, it had nothing to do with computers until she tried to get into
software development. I'm also going to assume that her classmates were not
completely new to the subject - or were afraid to admit they didn't get it.

What I'm saying is / TL;DR, getting into software development will be hard for
anyone if they don't have much prior experience; you can't just join up with a
class and expect to catch up on half a lifetime of prior knowledge. That's
probably also why the schools I attended had a wide range of classes, going
from history to hardware to operating systems to networks to office tools
until finally going to e.g. browsers and the web and the basics of software
development.

TL TL;DR, programming isn't easy

~~~
chippy
You are correct most people in software development have had an interest and
experience for long before adulthood. However that prerequisite doesn't have
to be that compulsory. We teach rocket science and brain surgery in
universities, and don't expect the students to have experience in such before
entering the course. Art, however, may be an exception (see below).

I think it's about how Computer Science is taught. A subject can be taught
effectively and learnt by enthusiastic learners. Anyone should be able to turn
up to a university and get taught how to program, with no prior experience.

What is essential is an enthusiasm and dedication to learn, and the skill of
being able to learn to learn.

Now - the above standing, Fine Art degrees and such often require the learner
to do a Foundation Year. This year (from my limited understanding) is mainly a
year of technical skills to bridge the gap between art at school and art at
university level, and a year where the student tries all forms and mediums to
choose the one they want to specialise in. If educators at university level
see that there is a need for such basic education, perhaps a foundation level
in basic computing could be an option.

------
iuguy
There's nothing wrong about being dumb as long as you want to do something
about it.

Here's a couple of women that have made me feel exceptionally dumb (and want
to do something about it) with the fascinating things they've had to say:

[1] - [https://vimeo.com/109380788](https://vimeo.com/109380788)

[2] - [https://vimeo.com/109380802](https://vimeo.com/109380802)

(disclaimer: I co-run the con these talks come from, but I still think they're
great talks)

------
justaaron
one thing I noticed about just about any industry, and this is not gender-
related, is a tendency to live in a bubble and to expect that other people
live in this same bubble and speak the same particular bubblese language.

I recall my high-school math teacher was very methodical, but even he "cruised
over a few points" or wasn't completely explicit about all the mechanics of a
given transformation/equation/formula, or perhaps wasn't clear about what the
desired product was of the particular set of manipulations we were studying.
It's all fine and good if YOU understand what you are explaining, or of a
couple top students can follow you and nod, but perhaps the bulk of the class
isn't getting it, and it would be extremely helpful for someone to stand up
and say exactly what this author said "I don't understand" as this would
provoke the necessary review and examination of the subject in question.

I think that closed cultures can be more welcoming of outsiders by being
willing to re-examine the basics often. too often we scorn basic questions
that would also be helpful in determining areas for future optimizations, or
would provoke the needed work to overcome pain points.

For example: inventions and optimizations often come from naive outsider
questions applied to "solved known done finished" problems

------
js2
I earned perfect scores on my CS classes at a large state university. I was
also a T.A. for a computer architecture lab where students had to write 68000
assembly. (Aside: when I took that class, the T.A. was a woman.)

Now this was the mid-90s and there were not many women in my classes. I search
my memory for the experiences described in this article, of T.A.'s mocking
students, of getting frustrated with students, of "dumb" girls. I just can't
remember anything like that. There were a handful of students like myself for
which certain subjects just clicked. And there were a handful that it seemed
like they just were never going to get it. But for most, it was this middle
ground of having to work hard to understand. Not everyone of my classes was a
breeze either. I must've pulled my hair out in my compilers class three times
over.

Mostly, this just sounds like the struggle of being a student. But I guess
everyone focuses their experiences through a certain lens. I hope I'm not
criticising here... mostly just thinking out loud.

------
sosedoff
When i read something like this it always brings up some memories back from
the college times. Back then i had some interesting experiences and knowledge,
while most of the students were interested in fields different from anything
CS-related. To my surprise, when i got into assembly class i had a very weird
feeling of being dumb just because it was not always clear to me how the this
whole machine world was operating. Other students got it right away. But i was
confused. I wasn't really interested in speaking up, so i just studies, but it
took me some time to finally "get it" as in really understanding how the
machine worked. But it took more than that. A lot of students were still
confused even though they understood the basics, so i took i tried to help out
and it turned out to be so much fun. It does not have to be that hard, it all
about your interests and intentions.

------
AnimalMuppet
I am male, and I am (too often) an arrogant jerk.

If I'm trying to learn something, I assume that I'm smart enough to learn it,
no question. If I don't understand it, it's because you didn't teach it well
enough - it's your fault, not mine.

So I have no problem saying "I don't understand", because I have no self-image
at stake. It's not enough to penetrate my arrogance. And when I say "I don't
understand" in a group, I'm often not just speaking for myself. There are
others there who don't understand.

That's what this lady is doing, only (hopefully) without the arrogant jerk
part. She's decided that she can admit when she doesn't understand, without it
threatening who she is. It's very freeing.

I got it as a side effect of being arrogant, but she got it by being brave.
More power to her.

------
coaching123
I think the title is misleading, you say dumb girl but then you get into the
top level, not an easy jump. Also if I was a professor I would like those
asking questions to be prepared before hand in basic concepts, just to no slow
down the class. There are certain type of questions that can arise naturally
when discussing certain topics, but if you ask many times and your questions
are of basic topics or greatly miss the topic you are giving a disservice to
your class.

I think being a girl give you the opportunity to coach other girls, and help
them, if you can prove that your personal experience can motivate others. But
not everyone is ready to put the necessary effort to get to the top level. I
think that mastering a subject requires some passion or being interested and
excited by the subject and to be prepared to put in the effort.

------
kaitai
That's real bravery. As a prof, I meet so few students who are willing to back
the the very bottom of what they don't understand and work up from there. It's
not what we're taught to do. How many of us have skated on over something
without really getting it? This is a great and honest post.

~~~
agumonkey
Very timely I was having a personal dilemma about keeping regressing to basics
and building backup from blank page or not. Very timely.

------
justaman
>Right then and there, I said loud, confidently, and clearly so everyone in
the room could hear me, “I DON’T UNDERSTAND.”

The room became instantly quite and the T.A. had a look on his face as if a
spell that had been cast over him was broken. After that his whole demeanor
changed. He became eager to help us. Not only that, but other people in the
room jumped in to help explain and even the girl grew visibly more comfortable
and started asking questions. Everyone became so eager to help – it was rowdy,
exciting – people left and right were neglecting their own work to try to help
us, it became a major group effort and everyone was so passionate to jump in
and help.

The field may be "male-dominated". That does not mean it is unfriendly to
women, generally speaking.

------
turdz
It is really important to abandon your ego when learning programing. The
"smart" students who get everything immediately have spent hours on their own
learning the material. That probably is the best way to learn the basics but
the next best thing is to do as the author did.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Some subjects are just intuitive to some people without them secretly spending
hours of extra study on them.

------
clavalle
Great post and great advice for anyone studying anything difficult.

We are trained to get everything right and be embarrassed if we don't know
something. This makes it hard to practice pushing the boundaries of our own
knowledge. It comes to the point where people can't even recognize when they
don't know a thing!

I don't know what the solution is but I think that schools should become
better at pushing people to the edge of their competency. To do so we must
become more tolerant of ignorance so the teacher and the student can learn
strategies to find the shape of it strategies on how to push themselves into
that unknown. Right now we generally wait until grad school to really do such
things and it is holding us back as a society.

------
tszymczyszyn
> I strongly believe that the continued and constant emphasis in taking pride
> in failure is EXACTLY what women need to be exposed to in order to let down
> their walls and break through the well-known façade that ‘you need to be a
> genius to be a computer scientist’.

Maybe that's my poor understanding of English but I feel that "taking pride in
failure" is a strange choice of words. I would say you can be proud of making
the effort but why be proud of failing?

OTOH you shouldn't be ashamed of failing to understand something straight
away, and more importantly you should not be afraid of asking loudly for a
better explanation.

------
alexchantavy
The author's courage in admitting that she doesn't understand is admirable,
although I think it would have added more to her story to talk about what made
her more willing to put this level of effort into CS as opposed to her
original major.

As an aside, I think hacker culture extends itself into university CS culture
in the sense that it's pretty much mandated to figure out a problem on your
own and RTFM before asking IRC/forums. I guess that kind of thing works on the
internet but not so much in real life - I struggle from time to time at work
to admit that I need help.

~~~
fapjacks
An approach worth trying here is to find a friend at the office who knows more
than you about things generally, then ask them privately. You can spur this on
by offering your help when they seem to be stuck, but doing so without making
a big scene or talking loudly about it. If you are seen as someone that
quietly helps people when they need it, you will reap immediate rewards when
you run into problems.

------
presto8
"Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing" (by Margolis & Fisher) is an
excellent book on this topic.

MIT Press page: [https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/unlocking-
clubhouse](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/unlocking-clubhouse) Amazon page:
[http://www.amazon.com/Unlocking-Clubhouse-Women-Computing-
Pr...](http://www.amazon.com/Unlocking-Clubhouse-Women-Computing-
Press/dp/0262632691)

------
jkot
Is this really a problem specific to computer science? Medical, biology,
physics.. all subjects have some harder parts. There is always someone who
does not understand.

~~~
crispyambulance
In an academic environment, there is nothing special about CS that makes it
different from any other subject as far as the experience of the OP is
concerned.

In the field, however, I have found more than a few "computer professional"
environments which are clearly hostile to beginners/newcomers. I suspect this
is because people tend to think that the way they learned is the "best way" to
learn a topic. In computer-related professions you have a lot of self-taught
folks who got to where they are by hard knocks and constantly facing a
profound lack of guidance. These same people often feel that newcomers should
undergo the same suffering they did. It's human nature, but it doesn't have to
be way.

------
parr0t
I study through a uni in Melbourne but purely online (minus exams) so this is
an interesting side of on-campus study that I had not thought of much. I have
found collaborative learning via the student forums is a great way to help
people out, and there are lots who do seek help which is great (myself
included). I'm just over halfway through my CS degree and now wandering how
different my progress & grades would be if I studied on-campus.

------
retrogradeorbit
When I was younger I worked at a top private secondary school for a number of
years in the IT department and one of the Social Studies teachers there was
very good and had an effect on me. She would tell people who had that attitude
of dismissing people's questions as stupid:

"There is no such thing as a stupid question. Only stupid answers."

When you think about it, it is both completely obvious, but also very
profound. It has stuck with me to this day.

~~~
autarch
I often tell people that the only stupid question is the one you didn't ask.
In other words, it's stupid to not ask questions when you don't understand
something.

------
j45
This was a great read and applies to as many comp sci / tech heads who are
more comfortable behind a keyboard than interacting with others.

Faking it till you make it always comes out in the wash.

Saying I don't understand, and acting on it in a "I want to understand' by
putting in the required work to ask, and learn is what makes a developer -
someone who is able to develop their skills, forever, as needed.

------
aws_ls
Would have been nicer, if she had given specific details in the article e.g.
languages, specific algorithmic examples. Almost everything she learnt
(overcoming her struggles) is just termed as _computer science_ , the only
other detail is of a 'robotics club'.

That said, generic lesson of overcoming fear of being seen as not-
understanding-dumb holds very well.

------
danielrhodes
Reading through the comments on here, it seems as if the post has been
misunderstood:

It is not about being a girl in computer science, it is about overcoming your
own fears of being perceived as dumb for not understanding, and then being
open about not understanding. When the author got over those fears, she
clearly states there were benefits for her and others for whom she taught this
technique.

~~~
brational
Title: Being a ‘Dumb’ Girl in Computer Science

Contents: What you said

Title should be: Being ‘Dumb’ in Computer Science

------
leichtgewicht
To me this article relates to the idea of pair-programming. In pair-
programming you should also pair lower-skilled with higher-skilled people to
lift the beginner's skill. Empathy and Patience required. The problem with
teamed-up programming is that it is very much relying on the groups culture
and switching between cultures might turn into a hard challenge.

------
lindseya
Great article! In it you mentioned the Laramie Robotics Club. As the founder
of a social robotics company, I'm wondering if there is something specific
about robots that makes them a good medium for learning to code. I have some
ideas about this but I would like to see what others think.

------
tenken
It sucks when someone is not naturally gifted at something, and can't just
grok it.

On the other hand, neither lab time or class time is the place to learn
something. That's the place to be exposed to new concepts and theories, and
work on something in a controlled environment with peers.

Most real learning is supposed to be done through homework and self motivation
to apply (new) skills to creative tasks.

So while someone is floundering in class to grasp the material -- I ask, how
much _extra_ time outside of class time are you spending to fully grasp,
ingest, and understand concepts through-and-through the stuff you find so
impossibly difficult.

All kungfu is hard to master -- but with enough practice, blood, sweat and
tears and perseverance anyone can acquire great kungfu.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIieUmp0aZ0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIieUmp0aZ0)

------
jeffdavis
Tangent: if you want to tutor someone, don't tell them things, ask questions.
Tons and tons of questions. A majority of the sentences you say should end in
a question mark.

Answer questions with more questions. It's annoying, but it works.

------
sonabinu
[https://www.ted.com/talks/reshma_saujani_teach_girls_bravery...](https://www.ted.com/talks/reshma_saujani_teach_girls_bravery_not_perfection?language=en)

------
cced
Not sure that this only applies to women, but for people in general. Also,
those TAs at the begining of the article don't seem to understand the learning
process – going from not knowing to knowing.

------
bitL
Why would girls voluntarily submit to development drudgery with zero status
from management amongst people they don't find attractive at all (more like
stupid nice ones that can be taken advantage of)? They have other options
given to them by nature, especially when they are younger that men don't have.
I known an entrepreneur who sold his company to one of the most known brands
in the world and his wife immediately quit her job, that she doesn't want to
deal with that nonsense anymore as her husband is now super rich. How many
guys can afford to do the same?

Many women really perceive developers as weirdos they don't want to have
anything with, only if they are forced to settle down by their age.

~~~
pkd
What you say might be true for a few but, "Many women" does not mean "all
women". A lot of women I know would not marry if they had to leave their jobs
afterwards, they love what they do.

------
pnathan
I have long chosen to own asking dumb questions. It's helped me, no doubt
about it. This girl will go far with the attitude of looking to understand.

------
coaching123
I don't see anything specially related to females. The author is just offering
couching and suggestions like ask in class.

~~~
lucb1e
I do. If I as a male would pretend to be dumb in class, I doubt all males
would jump to help me.

~~~
Maken
In my experience the response depends much more on the person being asked than
on who is making the question. In general, the people who actually understand
the subjects will try to help others, while those who are hiding their own
ignorance will look down on whoever is asking "dumb" questions.

------
dfrey
> I made the decision to raise my hand in class and admit publicly that I was
> completely lost. To my surprise, I found that not only the teacher, but also
> other students in class were eager to help and went out of their way to
> speak to me. So I decided that I would try the same thing in lab.

Nothing gets the attention of neck beards like a woman in need of computer
science help.

------
leshow
tl;dr claims to have a solution, writes 5 paragraphs about feelz

------
mcnamaratw
Being unafraid to ask the 'dumb' questions is very powerful for anyone.

------
gumby
Man or woman, this is an awesome story.

------
resist_futility
Literally see this every year in the lab

~~~
cmrx64
In the CS lab at my uni as well.

------
latenightcoding
Great post. You go Cat!

------
Kenji
Breaking news: Woman realizes that she has to get over her own ego to admit
difficulties and learn stuff, which is a good but obvious insight. However,
she has not let go of her ego fully since she cannot prevent herself from
letting her feminism flow into the blog post despite it being completely
unrelated.

~~~
dang
Please don't be uncharitable. This thread managed to be fairly civilized
despite the strongly divergent views HN users have. Posting comments like this
only tears the community back into war of all against all, and to quote my son
from when he was two, "that what we not do".

~~~
Kenji
My apologies. My affinity for sarcasm got the better of me. I will contain it
in the future.

