
How CMU increased number of women in CS from 7% to 37% [pdf] - rmanocha
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~lblum/PAPERS/TransformingTheCulture.pdf
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forensic
So they increased female students by...

1\. Giving female students special benefits and privileges.

1.1. Access to Big Sister program.

1.2. Special female-only clubs.

1.3. Special favour in admissions.

1.4. Special favour in high school.

2\. Stopped evaluating new students on ability in computer science (which is
based, like anything else, on experience) and started evaluating them on
extracurriculars and intangibles.

Does this seem kind of fucked to anyone else? They basically threw merit out
the window because they'd rather have diversity than talent. Are math programs
going to start admitting people who have no experience or proven ability in
math now, because those people do more charity work than math nerds? Are
chemistry students going to be chosen for their leadership ability rather than
scientific ability?

~~~
eb
I don't think you understand how college admissions work. Students are
generally accepted based on their overall academic record. Grades, SAT score,
extracurriculars, etc.

Students are not accepted to CS programs because they've written a lot of
prior code. I'm sure most incoming chemistry students have not spent time
inside a lab outside of their high school chemistry class. College is where
you specialize in a particular field so students are accepted based on their
overall aptitude and not experience in a specific subject.

~~~
forensic
... of course I understand how college admissions work. Do you assume that I
am a total idiot or something? :)

 _"the Admissions Office began giving more weight to non-academic factors,
looking for applicants with leadership potential and a commitment to “give
back to the community.” These broadened criteria also became important in
awarding financial aid."_

They changed the weighting to emphasize intangibles such as charity and
"leadership potential".

 _"He felt it was important to get the message out that “no prior programming
experience is necessary” to enter the CMU computer science program."_

They changed the weighting to de-emphasize experience - which is the #1
correlate to ability.

 _"I'm sure most incoming chemistry students have not spent time inside a lab
outside of their high school chemistry class."_

But if there _was_ a student who spent time outside the lab, they would give
that student special consideration because of proven ability and interest in
the field. It just so happens that the majority of CS students _are_ going to
have experience outside the computer lab, because in this world everyone has
their own computer. Most people don't have their own chemistry lab.

~~~
staticshock
Experience does correlate strongly with _current_ ability, but it correlates
much more weakly with _potential_ ability.

There's no college out there that requires "5 years prior job experience",
because the relationship between college and student is very different than
between employer and employee. Employers look for _current_ ability. Colleges,
on the other hand, look for _future_ ability, the indicators of which are
significantly more speculative.

~~~
yummyfajitas
There is at least one college which requires demonstrated skill (albeit not $N
years of experience).

<http://www.juilliard.edu/admissions/entrance/index.html>

According to my mother (a musician) most music programs tend to require prior
experience. The rationale is a stronger version of what forensic said: anyone
serious about music would have already invested effort into learning how to
play. The same could be easily said about CS.

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zandor
My university used a rather simple bait and switch trick with the degree names
and changed the name of power engineering to a more friendly energy and
environmental engineering.

It actually worked pretty well. There was a significant increase in female
students and they didn't change to another degree later.

~~~
catch23
Hm, interesting. Maybe computer science needs a new hip name to increase
enrollment. We could call it "Autonomous Human Sociology".

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mahmud
It's only 6 pages, and clearly says:

" _The findings of this study have been well documented elsewhere and we will
not go into details here._ "

The paper is a summary and synthesis of an entire project, see some of their
publications here:

<http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/gendergap/www/papers/>

Their approach is multi-pronged and involved:

1) Meticulous study of male and female CS students' attitudes towards computer
science education. _"Funded by Sloan, the project consisted of hundreds of
interviews with both male and female CS students about their histories with
computing, interests, motivations and aspirations, reasons for majoring in CS,
and their experiences in the undergraduate program. Conducted over a four-year
period, the project was able to track many students throughout their time at
Carnegie Mellon. By interviewing students once a semester._ "

2) Education of new teachers of Advanced Placement (AP) Exam for Computer
Science in a teacher summer school and alerting them to the gender gap in
computing. This summer school took place in CMU, and since it was addressing
gender gap, CMU became some sort of Mecca for those who who care about women's
involvement in computing.

3) Revamping of the admissions process. " _In addition to demonstrated
academic competence, the Admissions Office began giving more weight to non-
academic factors, looking for applicants with leadership potential and a
commitment to “give back to the community.” These broadened criteria also
became important in awarding financial aid .. About the same time, Allan
Fisher also conveyed to the Admissions Office his goal of a gender-balanced
program. He felt it was important to get the message out that “no prior
programming experience is necessary” to enter the CMU computer science
program. The image of a CS student as someone (usually male) who has played
with computers since early childhood is widespread. This often discourages
many otherwise talented students from applying to a computer science program."

4) "_A Supportive Community: The Women@SCS Advisory Council: The Women@SCS
Advisory Council was created in the fall of 1999 and has since met weekly
during the academic year. Membership includes undergraduates representing all
four years and graduate students representing the various departments within
SCS*". 9

~~~
gritzko
>> Admissions Office began giving more weight to non-academic factors, looking
for applicants with leadership potential and a commitment to “give back to the
community.”

Oh, God! What is the plan? Train students in "leadership" and "networking",
leave boring technical stuff to those nerds in India or China?

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srn
According to their research, women started out with much less confidence but
by the junior year it has started to level out when the classes become more
difficult for both genders. See section "Gap Between Perceived and Actual
Ability" and "Confidence Gap Narrows"

Also see "Geek Mythology: Lore about Being in CS" specifically "It is
important to note that most of the CS students (both male and female) we
interviewed feel they do not match the stereotype: their interests are varied
(including sports, theater, poetry) and not isolated to computer science. "

[http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/gendergap/www/papers/si...](http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/gendergap/www/papers/si..).

This paper expounds more on the view that a student must be absorbed in
computers 24/7 and that women's perception is that they must be this way to
succeed:
[http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/gendergap/www/papers/an...](http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/gendergap/www/papers/an...but)
men who are not like that still feel like they can be successful in computer
science under "The Non-Hacker Male" from that paper.

Based on this information, I believe the stereotypes are self perpetuating and
breaking the feedback loop will help a lot. I ask that you personally help by
keeping an open mind.

------
quellhorst
I tried to find out how, but there was too much filler to find the reason in
under a few minutes.

~~~
barry-cotter
A variety of things.

Discrimination against ubernerds _In addition to demonstrated academic
competence, the Admissions Office began giving more weight to non-academic
factors, looking for applicants with leadership potential and a commitment to
give back to the community._

Mentoring Programme _The most extensive single activity of the Women@SCS
Advisory Council has been the Big Sister/Little Sister program, which pairs
upper-class and graduate students with firstyear and sophomore CS majors._

Changing emphasis/delivery of (introductory) courses _Even more, insights
provided by the Council are likely to have profound impact on the curriculum.
In her green paper circulated at a meeting with faculty, senior Ting-Chih Shih
clearly pointed out that the current CS undergraduate curriculum serves male
students far better than females. For one, the entry programming courses favor
students with more experience (usually men) who seem to get better scores
effortlessly As a result, many women begin thinking that learning computer
science takes innate talent and no amount of hard work will pay off They start
to lose confidence and forget their initial interest in computer science
Moreover, the way lectures are presented seem to appeal to men more. In
general, females feel that the birds-eye view of a problem, and the end
result, are more relevant than the coding details in between_

~~~
tigerthink
>In general, females feel that the birds-eye view of a problem, and the end
result, are more relevant than the coding details in between

Doesn't this suggest that men are more likely to be wired for programming?

~~~
CrLf
Actually, doesn't that mean that women don't have what it takes to actually be
a programmer? The devil is in the details, as they say.

Not stating a fact, just pointing out that in the context of a technical
profession, that citation actually sounds derogatory.

~~~
spamizbad
Since when has dithering over details been recognized as a favorable trait in
programmers? Also, that response was in the context of intro-level CS courses:
so if you're fretting over the implementation details of glorified Hello World
applications, instead of focusing on the overarching concepts , I'd be
inclined to say you'd better change your ways or you _won't_ be a very good
programmer.

~~~
CrLf
I have three things to say about that:

1\. Not every CS graduate will work as a programmer. Many will work in other
technical roles within the industry. Do not assume that CS knowledge is only
appliable to programming. I graduated from a CS course and I'm currently a
sysadmin, and having a CS degree makes me a better professional;

2\. Having little interest in the details is usually just common-speak for
lack of technical skill. Having the skill/competence and lacking the interest
is seldom found in the same person;

3\. It's the introductory classes that lay out the ways in which one faces
every programming problem. Not paying attention to detail means allowing bad
habits to root themselves. I still remember some of those "details" from my
introductory classes to programming 12 years ago, and I frequently other
people (otherwise experienced) commiting mistakes that I manage to avoid due
to those "details".

------
anamax
The author says that retention is important but I didn't see anything about
either retention or graduation rates. If the "extra" women aren't graduating
at a reasonable rate, did admitting them do them any good? Or, is that the
wrong question?

Looking at the numbers, we see a change from 89 men and 7 women (96 total) to
83 men and 49 women (132 total) enrolled.

Looking at admission rates shows us how it was done. The women's admission
rates were basically unchanged, from 34% to 36%, so the increase in women
admitted and enrolled is due almost entirely to the increase in applications
by women. At the same time, the overall admission rates dropped from 26% to
12%. Since the population has only two components, men and women, and the
rates for women were unchanged means that the admission rates for men dropped
significantly.

I wonder what relationship the admissions criteria have to success in the
program.

However, the numbers suggest another question. What about the guys who were
displaced by women? (There were at least 6 and no men got any of the
"expansion" slots.) They get the same benefits that the rest of us get from
more women in CMU CS, but they "paid" more than the rest of us. ("But for" the
decision to admit women on a different scale, they would have gotten in.)
Shouldn't they be compensated?

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ShardPhoenix
Sounds like the main thing they did was to emphasize that no previous
programming experience was needed to study CS there.

