Re: Opening doors for women in computing
Amaya wrote:
http://news.com.com/Opening+doors+for+women+in+computing/2100-1022_3-5557311.html
That's a really interesting article Amaya. Thanks for posting it.
I wonder how many other people here experienced a similar thing to what
the woman interviewed relates: namely that the apparent level of
programming expertise of the men in her course, before the course even
started, was so high that she felt incompetant by comparison and was
discouraged from pursuing it further.
In an electrical engineering degree, started 12 years ago, I certainly
experienced similar things. It was part of what put me off from doing
more programming/IT subjects. I got back into being interested in
programming several years later via my physics research. I became
interested in FOSS some time after that.
I would be interested to know who else has had similar experiences, when
that was, and what brings them here now with a interest in FOSS. I
would hope that it is a trend that is decreasing, and that women
starting CS/IT/engineering degrees now are not being similarly
discouraged from pursuing programming and similar courses. Or at least
not as much, anyway.
My approximate theory is that, on average, women follow a different
route to being interested in things like Debian and FOSS compared to the
average man, and that my experiences are not unusual. But I might be
all wrong on that - I'm going on anecdotal evidence only.
Helen
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