A Study On Computer Science

Women are obtaining more then half of the bachelor degrees earned in America but that has not limited the earning and abilities of the working class man. Phyllis Rosser’s, Too Many Women in College? (2005) is used to expose the still continuing gender issues in higher education. It exposes the issue that yes, there are more women then men in undergrad and master’s programs but men are still outnumbering women in doctoral programs as well as higher paying fields of study (engineering, computer science, business). Still regardless of education women will still face the income gap. Comparing Lee’s and Shaw’s conclusion to the study by Investing in Futures Public Higher Education in America, Women in Higher Education both sources have come to the conclusion that women make up over half of students enrolled in undergrad and their is an uneven representation of women in math and science based degree programs. Janet Lee’s and Susan M. Shaw’s, Women’s Voices Feminist Visions Classic and Contemporary Readings is an accredited and well developed source that highlights the development of women’s

Currently, I am pursuing a career in the software development field of computer science. In this field, I will mostly be creating programs and software to be installed or run on computers or other machines. Of course like any professional career, ethical issues can appear, but the issues found in the tech industry are not always found in the office area. Many of the issues developers face are outside of the office area and out in the field. The type of issues I am addressing is computer crimes, computer failures, protection and theft of software, and the corruption of privacy and company property. Developers face the challenge of protecting their programs from being misused and making sure that the programs are safe for users. Two cases that show these types of dilemmas are the Therac-25 case and the infamous Target hack of 2013. The Therac-25 case will show what happens when a product and its software are not properly constructed, while the Target Hack case will show an example of the misuse of software that lead to millions of credit cards stolen.

Before women to get more involved in the STEM fields women first have to go and get degrees in STEM undergraduate programs. One way to help change this is the lack of female role models. Girls need role models to show that they can be successful in STEM fields. If there are such strong gender stereotypes it might be discouraging women from pursuing STEM education and STEM jobs. It is complicated to get young women role models because the people who are part of the hiring team said that were less likely to say they would hire the female applicants overall and that they would offered them lower salaries and fewer mentoring opportunities. This is a problem because women will be less likely to want to get into these fields because they will have to work so much harder to get the same recognition as the males. Young girls will be more interested in getting into one of these fields where they fear comfortable. Young girls need a role model like Emily Roebling who studied math and science and became the chief engineer in the building of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1860. Another reason that girls are less likely to pursue these majors is gender stereotyping, and less family-friendly flexibility in the STEM fields. Across all STEM fields, female PhDs have lower rates of patenting and entrepreneurship than do male PhDs. This difference is most pronounced in physics, astronomy and the computer sciences, in which women earned only 1 in 5 PhDs. There is a need to encourage and support women in

There is a common belief that we do not see many women and minorities in tech because  that there are simply not enough female and minority students studying math and science.

With my zero knowledge of computer science and coding, I took the challenge of taking AP Computer Science Principle. In the class, we create apps for android phones and learn about the use of the Internet. As I go into class everyday, I notice how there is only 5 girls (including myself) and 24 boys in the class. Not a lot of female students take the course of computer science. Usually, when thinking of computers, most people think of it as a “guy’s job”, no girls good enough to do

On the other hand, sitting in my courses left a feeling of unwelcoming atmosphere and isolation. Almost the same exact feeling as I catch when walking into interviews. I currently do not work in my field. To have majored in such a dominating male industries, I had to work harder than others and develop valuable connections. Computer Science/Technology continues to be a white collar industry dominated by males for numerous centuries. This industry is gender bias and discriminates against women. As a result, there are not many women in the computing profession.

Men are the people who have the most rank in technical skills. There has not been any growth in jobs in STEM since 2000 for women. It has been said that the pattern may begin in early education. Females may not be encouraged to study math and science as much as males are encouraged to do so. Very few of females who earn bachelor’s degree do so in the area of STEM. However, slightly over half of bachelor’s degrees are earned by women. Many people believe that females lack the intelligence to be successful in STEM. Others believe women do better in skills such as education, and humanitarian roles such as doctor’s an lawyers. Sometimes women themselves believe that men have what it takes to be successful in STEM. Sometimes females have “self-esteem”

Although computer industries have grown exponentially, there still remains a shortage of quality computer science graduates to support this growth. This is more pronounced amongst female graduates who are less attracted to this field. The challenges in computer science are well documented, with studies suggesting that female’s attitudes about computer science are set early on, where they find computer science to be boring and characterised as geeky and uninteresting (Cheryan et al., 2015). The declining interest means that fewer students are being drawn into undergraduate computer science courses. Despite, a wide range of initiatives to encourage females in computer science, this still continues to be a challenge (Computer Science Online,

Andresse St. Rose, Christianne Corbett, and Catherine Hill, are actively involved in the field of female studies in education and researchers for The American Association of University Women. In their 2010 book titled Why so Few? Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, the first chapter is the book’s namesake and contains a wide depth of information, from statistics regarding a smaller female presence in STEM careers, differences across gender in students pursuing STEM related AP courses, and a comparison of the gender divide in earlier years with the present time.

The Technovation Challenge that required you to code a mobile application to solve a community problem sparked my interest in computer science. I built up my skills in CS through the preparation for this competition, which led me to continue learning new programming languages like Java and HTML. The key message behind this competition was that even if you are a woman, you could accomplish anything in a STEM field. Only after this was I exposed to the inequality present in STEM fields. I wanted to give the same opportunities to girls all over to inspire and prepare them to pursue STEM fields. After being selected by the Made With Code Advisory Committee, I was further educated on the inequality and how much girls would be benefited if they had

The role of diversity in Computer Science (CS) has recently been brought into focus. Reports from top technology companies (e.g., Google, Facebook) indicate that we have a lot of work ahead of us to ensure truly diverse workforces in the technology sector. I was particularly troubled by two findings in these reports: (1) the incredibly low fraction of women relative to men (15-17% vs. 83-85%); and (2) underrepresentation of the “Hispanic” and “Black” communities (together less than 7%). Reading more about this topic helped me understand what the core issues were. One such issue, that needs to be tackled at the early stages of education, is that of getting more school children (especially from underrepresented populations) interested in CS.

An introductory computer science class is where I met a man who changed my life in a negative way. The man who I met on that fateful day in class became my husband a few years later. He was not honest to me or my family. He married me just to obtain his resident status in the United States. After he obtained his green card after four years of marriage he married another woman without informing me while he was still legally married to me. I found the name of the woman on his cell phone and called the number. The other woman's father picked up the phone and I explained to her father that I was his wife. The father then said to me, "Is your name Hadiza"? I said "yes". He then said, "Oh, you are the one that he married for a green card". This

Personally, I am determined to become a Computer Software Engineer by first obtaining my degree in Computer Science during college. Unfortunately, females are minorities in this pathway so they work harder to prove their ability to excel in STEM courses while being negatively influenced by sexism. As a female, I want to empower people (particularly women) to pursue STEM careers to prove our capability of completing the same tasks as males while possibly developing enhanced versions of their accomplishments. Although, the smaller percentage of students will be underestimated, I want to encourage others to do the best notwithstanding the situations. After all, there is no reason to strive for anything lower than the

In order to get my point across of the need of more women in Computer Science, the best group to present my solution to is towards the Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District. In addition, the school district is great in order to keep it to a local community and present the need to involve all schools to promote some computer related course for all students. This is important because according to a research by the University of Washington, “children express the stereotype that mathematics is for boys, not for girls, as early as second grade” (McElroy 2011). The typical age for the second grade is seven years old and to think that seven years olds already have the mindset of stereotyping at such a young age is astonishing. Consequently, mathematics are very important to Computer Science and at early ages of stereotypes, this would certainly not help the outcome of women in computer-related degrees for the future.

areas of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics employers are not getting enough women (Pozniak). High school girls only represent 17 percent of computer science Advance Placement (AP) test takers (O'Shea). The most significant group of minorities who are behind in earning computer technology degrees and working in science and mathematical professions are women. “Historically, women’s low representation in science and engineering was said to be due in large part of their lack of ability, interest, or both” (Horning 30). However, this is no longer a true fact according to Ward. Some suggestions to increasing the amount of women in sciences include introducing already present women faculty as mentors. Over the last three decades,