Ken Nelson

The NY Times (remember to turn your ad blocker on before clicking through) bemoans the lack of girls studying computer science.  As an active employer and hirer of Computer Science grads I can attest that not many women send resumes. I can recall maybe 1 in the last 5 years.  I have a building full of guys that stare at computers all day.

I think it is because of role playing / first person shooter games that most recent graduates seem to be heavily into. Apparently others think that as well:

“I asked at a department meeting,” he says, “ ‘Where have the women gone?’ It wasn’t clear.” His theory is that young women earlier had felt comfortable pursing the major because the male subculture of action gaming had yet to appear.

We get a lot of e-mails at work from someone named “Tracy”, who we have never talked to or met in person. I’ve thought Tracy was a girl, but everybody else thinks Tracy is a guy.  Using these statistics, they are probably right.  Of course that ignores that I’m almost always right (at work anyway).

The bigger issue for Computer Science, IMHO, isn’t who is doing it but the lack of rigor in the education. This is driven by “modern” improvements to computer languages that make it easier to program but also make the programmer less aware of the cost of their algorithms.

Via Dad