Best Time Ever to be a Women in Theory
Maria M. Klawe
President
Harvey Mudd College
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outline
• Why it’s the best time ever
• To be female in CS
• To be in theory
• Getting more women into CS
• Advice for success
• Maria
• Sheryl
• Having it all vs having more of it
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Best time ever for women in CS
• Industry and academia recognize that
women have talent
• Almost everyone wants more women
• Industry – intense demand for CS skills at
all levels
• Academia – recognition that female faculty
are an asset
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Progress on combining career
and personal live issues
• Solving the two body problem
• Facilitating mothers and careers
• Significant variance in practice among
institutions
• A lot more progress is needed
• It’s come a long way over the last 25
years
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More visibility for women in CS
• Two female Turing award winners in last
5 years
• Sheryl Sandberg calling for more
women leaders in tech
• Hopper conference now annual with
3000+ attendees (600 in 2002)
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Best time ever for theory
• Computational thinking
• Algorithms are changing the world
• Advertising
• Science
• Education
• Simons Institute at Berkeley
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Getting more women into CS
• Female % of CS bachelor degrees given
by Ph.D. granting departments fell from
20% in 2001 to 11 – 14% during 2005 –
2010.
• HMC CS majors went from 10% female
in 2006 to 40% female in 2009 and have
stayed there (37 – 50%).
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What works
• Increasing interest in computing
• Increasing confidence
• Encouragement
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How it happened at HMC
• Change to intro CS class
• Increased interest, confidence
• Hopper trip for first year females
• Increased interest, sense of belonging
• Research opportunities in the summer
after first year
• Increased interest
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Change to the intro CS class
• Intro CS class changed from:
• “learning to program in Java” to
• “team-based solving science problems
using computational approaches in Python”
• Intro CS sections grouped by prior
experience into “gold”, “black”, “green”
and 42
• macho bad behavior eliminated
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Advice for success (Maria)
• Pick something important to work on
• Work hard and persist especially when
success seems doubtful
• Build teams and alliances
• Regularly re-evaluate your strategy and
be willing to change
• Ask for help
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Advice for success (Sheryl)
• Believe in your self
• Aim high
• If you want to have children pick the
right partner
• Lean forward into your career
• Raise awareness of issues facing
women in tech careers
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Having it all vs having more
• Nobody ever has it all; life is always a
sequence of choices and compromises
•
•
•
•
Going to IBM Research
Going to UBC
Going to Princeton
Going to Harvey Mudd College
• Painting vs Math vs CS vs Administration
• Many choices are not irreversible
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Why numbers are increasing in grad
students, faculty, leadership …
• Industry, academia, professional
organizations providing programs to
keep women in the pipeline
• In recent years
• Female % grad students > % undergrads
• Female % assist. profs hired > % Ph.D.s
• Techleaders
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Why numbers are decreasing in
undergrad majors…
• Myth about IT jobs disappearing
• Dot-com crash, media emphasis on
outsourcing
• Image of computing jobs
• No life, no people interactions, boring
• Image of CS courses being all about
computers
• CS classes being cut in high schools
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What can WE do to attract girls
before college…
• Outreach to schools, parents, teachers
• Focus on the unconverted
• Take whatever opportunities are offered
• Insert truth about CS as an aside
• Go where the girls are
• Craft messages for math, bio, chem, art, English,
psychology teachers
• Awesome CS summer camps
• Adjust selective college admissions criteria
• Have CS engagement count as a creative or
volunteer activity
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Questions and Comments
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