Read the article first!

http://www.slate.com/id/2286671/pagenum/all/

You really could have been great! We need more Erins in the world. :(

MI's actually a bad example 'cause off the top of my head, there's a near 50/50 split between the girls in Eng/Science and the ones in artsy programs.

What do you think? Were you actually as good as/better than the guys in high school? And did anyone else almost spit out whatever they were drinking when they read

"But the number of female students asking for help from a male professor dropped to zero."

?

Because I came pretty damn close.

Originally Posted by Entropy

Read the article first!

http://www.slate.com/id/2286671/pagenum/all/

You really could have been great! We need more Erins in the world. :(

MI's actually a bad example 'cause off the top of my head, there's a near 50/50 split between the girls in Eng/Science and the ones in artsy programs.

What do you think? Were you actually as good as/better than the guys in high school? And did anyone else almost spit out whatever they were drinking when they read ?

Because I came pretty damn close.

Sheesh. The Internet really spoils me with the TLDR tag. Really, journalism should really follow suite.

I always ask Jeff Landry for help <3

Honestly not at all suprised.

I keep telling my girlfriend she would have made a great Industrial Engineer. Though I suppose Environmental Science does the trick for her

Wow. this makes some sense, actually. thanks for sharing.

In my high school, we had a population of about 800-900 students (Hill Park, upper wentworth, for those curious)
in my grade 12 year, there was only one gr. 12 university level physics class offered (no college). we had 11 students in the class, and I was the only girl our teacher was also a guy, so you can imagine how it felt to be in that position for the whole term. needless to say, I didn't have the greatest confidence ~__~ but hey, I survived.

aside from this gender stuff, physics/math is what is scaring most people away from science in general. that was definetly the case at our school.

Originally Posted by Entropy

Read the article first!

http://www.slate.com/id/2286671/pagenum/all/

You really could have been great! We need more Erins in the world. :(

MI's actually a bad example 'cause off the top of my head, there's a near 50/50 split between the girls in Eng/Science and the ones in artsy programs.

What do you think? Were you actually as good as/better than the guys in high school? And did anyone else almost spit out whatever they were drinking when they read ?

Because I came pretty damn close.

Warning: rant

Articles like this really irritate me for several reasons. Firstly, because they're an example of poor statistics. Going off only the information provided in the article, there is no way that they could have isolated the other variables to ensure that it was the gender of the greeter or the gender of the professor that affected the girls' performance. To arrive at such a conclusion with just that one study is just ... bad science. It's presupposing the conclusion, and collecting data to suit it.

Secondly, because the article ignores the larger socioeconomic climate that encourage women to pick other "non-technical" careers. Some of the comments below address this really well.. women tend to think of the impact on their husbands/children of choosing a certain career much more than men do. It has less to do with a lack of female role models and more to do with "holy crap, by the time I'm done with my PhD, and get established in a career, I could be too old to have kids." As long as that choice is made freely, by evaluating personal priorities, I see no problem with it.

I rarely hear women say things like "I chose so and so career path because I want to get rich quickly!" Now, I'm no sociologist, but I'd wager that this might be because women are often encourage to choose careers that provide personal satisfaction, while men are socially ingrained to believe that they must be the 'providers,' and hence choose science/engineering careers that tend to have high incomes.

Anyway, the point of this is that no, I don't think the lack of female professors in Eng Phys going to be what affects my career choice, and I think you'd have to work pretty hard to find a woman in engineering who supported that statement. What will affect my career choices will be job satisfaction, whether that's teaching pre-schoolers to colour or pursuing cutting-edge research. The way men and women make career decisions is far more complicated than this article makesit out to be.

NOTE: I sort of do agree about the confidence aspect of the article. But that's based purely on anecdotal evidence and absolutely no statistics, so....

Originally Posted by Geek

Warning: rant

Articles like this really irritate me for several reasons. Firstly, because they're an example of poor statistics. Going off only the information provided in the article, there is no way that they could have isolated the other variables to ensure that it was the gender of the greeter or the gender of the professor that affected the girls' performance. To arrive at such a conclusion with just that one study is just ... bad science. It's presupposing the conclusion, and collecting data to suit it.

Secondly, because the article ignores the larger socioeconomic climate that encourage women to pick other "non-technical" careers. Some of the comments below address this really well.. women tend to think of the impact on their husbands/children of choosing a certain career much more than men do. It has less to do with a lack of female role models and more to do with "holy crap, by the time I'm done with my PhD, and get established in a career, I could be too old to have kids." As long as that choice is made freely, by evaluating personal priorities, I see no problem with it.

I rarely hear women say things like "I chose so and so career path because I want to get rich quickly!" Now, I'm no sociologist, but I'd wager that this might be because women are often encourage to choose careers that provide personal satisfaction, while men are socially ingrained to believe that they must be the 'providers,' and hence choose science/engineering careers that tend to have high incomes.

Anyway, the point of this is that no, I don't think the lack of female professors in Eng Phys going to be what affects my career choice, and I think you'd have to work pretty hard to find a woman in engineering who supported that statement. What will affect my career choices will be job satisfaction, whether that's teaching pre-schoolers to colour or pursuing cutting-edge research. The way men and women make career decisions is far more complicated than this article makesit out to be.

NOTE: I sort of do agree about the confidence aspect of the article. But that's based purely on anecdotal evidence and absolutely no statistics, so....

you said you were studyin' all night Sneha! You skipped out on Taylor's party to read this?
nah, I don't care I'm just being mean.

In all seriousness I was so confused at the start of first year. In high school there were only a few people in the university level math and sciences, and half of them were women. I expected that the girls would also go to engineering since all the guys I know went into engineering, but only the guys went into engineering. (also, one girl went into science, the rest into humanities or something)

It varies a lot within the Science faculty, even, which I find much more interesting myself. Psych and straight Bio seem to be really girly (lots of chicks on average, lol), but then you have stuff like physics and math that seem to sit on the other end of it (at least from what I've seen...even with the profs). Strange...