Practical Advice for Women Beginning Their Computer Science Degree

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As August winds down, it’s time for those of us embarking upon college to gear up and start classes. As I prepare for my own programming and software project management classes to begin, I can’t help but think back to my first run at college, as a freshman in computer science at Purdue University. It was a while ago, but often it feels just like yesterday. College is a huge transition on so many levels, but it’s also a time of unimaginable learning and development. Who you are now is not who you will be in four years.

I’ve been reading a lot about how the number of women in computer science hasn’t been rising, even though we’ve spent countless hours and dollars on outreach programs for girls. There are many solutions being suggested, from single-sex classrooms and STEM badges for Girl Scouts, to making computer science classes friendlier to women and minorities. While I applaud most attempts at trying to sell this entertaining career to all types of folks, this article is NOT about any of that. Instead, I want to offer my own advice to girls who have decided to take on computer science this fall, right now, as things stand at this moment in time. For I too was in your shoes, the first time was decades ago, but I’m taking a second stab at it now as I retrain to return to tech after a hiatus raising my kids and chasing my dream to become a novelist. And while some things have changed, many things haven’t and what was true for me as an 18-year-old is still true for me now.

So, if you’re a freshman female heading out to college to study comp sci, I want to congratulate you on your fine career choice. Not only is a career in software engineering intellectually stimulating, it’s also quite adventurous. At every stage of development you’ll be working on solving problems and puzzles. Whether you’re defining the requirements, or out in the field diagnosing a bug, this is a career that will continue to inspire you for as long as you love doing it.

As you head to university, I’d like to pass on some advice, woman-to-woman, to help you get off to the best start possible.

If you like to solve problems and puzzles with machines, then you belong

I’ve read more than a few stories on Medium and other news outlets about women who said they left their STEM majors because when they walked into their first class, they noticed that there weren’t any other women in the room. Thus, for some reason, they felt that the major wasn’t for them. To this I say to you, “OH HELL NO!” As a female in computer science, you will be the minority in the room. You might even be a super minority, as I was. At first, I didn't realized there weren’t many other women in my CS classes. In the beginning, there were more of us. But by junior year, there were about five of us. I’m not kidding. Not only that, I was the only white, sorority girl. With my bleach blonde hair tied back in a huge bow (it was the early 90’s) and Greek letters on my chest, I stood out like a sore thumb.

But so what? It never occurred to me that I didn’t belong. Here’s the thing, I like solving problems with machines. So did everyone else who was left by junior year. With time, you will work together more in groups and make friends, even if they’re not the same gender or race as you. My favorite memories are hanging with my all-male crew, talking about our senior project while listening to Bob Dylan and wondering why anyone would use recursion for anything other than fractals. They’re guys, not the devil. They’re not out to get you just because you’re different.

We can’t stop living our desires merely because we might look or act differently than others who share the same passions. Otherwise, there’s no point in life, is there? Last spring, I enrolled in the Intro to Programming class at my local college. The first class was like déjà vu. Not because I was one of the few females, as matter of fact it was an incredibly diverse group with women and men about 50-50 as well as several African Americans and Latinos. This made my heart soar. What made me different this time was my age. I’m 46, and everyone else was no more than 20. They didn’t look like me. Should I have left the classroom, believing that tech is beyond me because I’m not 20? No, that would have been ridiculous.

I like solving problems with machines, so I belonged in that class. If you like solving problems with machines, you belong in Intro to Programming as well.

Coding is a lot of work, so get ready to develop some grit.

This is something I think most first years don’t quite understand. Your assignments will take time, lots of time. Not the initial ones, but by the fourth week expect to spend at least 10 hours a week on your programs. I knew this going into my class last semester, but as I listened to the students complain about the workload, I realized that many had not been prepared for this.

This is just the way things go in computer science. Like writing a novel, writing code is a process. You have to go through the stages, from reading the assignment, to figuring out the best solution, to writing your code, to testing it and turning it in. Yes, the "Rockstar" programmer next to you who’s been coding since he was 10 will be able to code faster than you, at first. But he still has to take the time to understand the requirements and design a solution, and bugs are the bane of every coder’s existence. Very few get it running under all test conditions on the first try. So budget a lot of time for your assignments. That way you won’t be so surprised.

The thing is, you need this experience now to make sure you really love this type of work. In the workplace, sometimes you will be coding for the entire day. Sometimes, when a release is ready, you’ll be coding and testing through the weekend. And if your code breaks in the field, you need to be ready to fix it. It’s not an easy job, and I don’t think sugar coating it to get more people to try it is a good idea.

But then again, if you love solving problems with machines, then the time will pass quickly. You won’t even realize you spent 8 hours coding. I loved those late nights in the Math-Science lab (these were the early days of the internet, and dial-up was an excruciatingly slow experience, so we had to work on Unix servers in the lab, not in the comfort of our own room or a trendy coffee shop). We’d get pizza sent in, even though it was against the rules, and code together until the wee hours of the morning. I still lose track of time, especially when stumped. I’m actually looking forward to my assignments this fall in Advanced Programming. To lose myself in my code is the same as losing myself when writing a novel.

And when your code runs and passes all tests—ah, there’s nothing like it.

The math requirements for this degree can be hard—but don’t give up!

Math was never my strong suit. Particularly math after Calculus II. For some reason, it literally went over my head. There were many times I wondered if I’d make it, and those were some of the lowest grades in my time at Purdue. I even entered behind in math, as I didn’t take calculus in high school and it ended up being a pre-requisite for my first CS class (high school counselors weren’t as on top of it back then). I wrote about the experience, and I’m so glad that I didn’t give up. Math is beautiful, for so many reasons. And while you may wonder if it’s necessary, it’s my belief, and the belief of many of the experienced engineers and engineering managers I’ve talked to, that one of the main values of a computer science degree is the advanced mathematics curriculum that goes with it. To think like a computer, you need to understand algorithms, and the three years of higher math will change you, literally at the neurological level. Even if you barely pass, you will be a better programmer for it. Trust me on this. Don’t let it stop you. Remind yourself that you love solving problems with machines, and that your multivariable calculus class is teaching you how to think like one. I can’t do any of that sort of math now, but I can still think like a machine. I was forever changed by my struggles in math, and it was a change for the better.

Hey hardware girls, you’re amazing!

I’ve been focused on computer science majors, but I want to give a quick shout out to all those girls about to embark on a degree in engineering. No matter what the bros in Silicon Valley think, without hardware engineers, we’re screwed. It’s very exciting that you’ve decided to learn both and while you too will experience many of the same struggles as your comp sci sisters, your degree is like CS+10. There will be challenges you can’t even imagine, but the payoff is high. Many of the most successful women in technology have an engineering degree. The charismatic Ginni Rometty of IBM has both her CS and EE degrees, and longtime Xerox CEO, Ursula Burns, has a degree in mechanical engineering. One of the first women I worked with out of college, Kelly Marquardt, was an electrical engineer and is now VP of R&D Strategic Customer Engagements at Cray. The world might be obsessed with software, but without a machine to run on, all those bits and bytes are just someone’s imagination.

Welcome to computer science…I truly hope you find it to be meaningful work and that you make your mark in the world of technology. From this corner of the blog-o-sphere, I am cheering you on.

Rebel Parenting—Raising Scientists and Artists in Our Homes

Let’s face it, science and the arts are under attack in America right now. Many have begun to portray science as a liberal conspiracy and view the arts as a liberal social experiment hell bent on ruining society with its loose morals. Recently, the Trump Administration released recommendations for major cuts to scientific research as well as the National Endowment of the Arts.

In a world where most blue collar jobs, and soon many white collar jobs, will never return due to automation and advancements in artificial intelligence, careers in science and the arts are some of the few that will be left for humans to do. Why then is America so determined to shoot itself in the foot and encourage both fields to perish?

For the most part it’s an ideology not unlike the one that ruled the Dark Ages. Art allows freedom of the mind and expression of one’s divinity, without the need of a church or organization. When participating in the arts, a person can find great spiritual fulfillment. Thus, the mind that creates is one that can’t be controlled with fear of the afterlife, because they live so fully in this life.

The same goes for science, which is the investigation of, “Why?” Scientists, like artists, see the world through curiosity and awe, and seek to use objective methods to explain why things work the way they do. Innovation begins in the realm of ideas. It’s said that Nikola Tesla would design and test every machine he ever invented in his mind first, before building it. Like a story or a painting, cures for disease or new machines are born within the imagination, and then through human will, become manifest.

And like art, those who study science are also hard to control. They question everything, and seek answers beyond yes or no. Thinkers are the neutralizers of the binaries, and thus a challenge to any system that seeks power through control.

Thus in these times of alternative facts and fake news, we need artists and scientists more than ever, and it’s no coincidence that funding for their programs is on the chopping block. This doesn’t bode well for our country, and I for one will not sit by and watch it happen.

There is one group of people who can combat this desire to squelch curiosity and awe: Parents. Yes, teachers play a crucial role, but many of them are beholden to the budget cuts that are coming down the line. Parents are still free to create homes where exploration, curiosity and the burning desire to ask why still exist. In our homes we can create spaces to encourage our children to become artists and scientists. This is not only a civic duty, but it is also to protect them, for this generation will need the ability to adapt and be creative in a world where robots perform most of the work humans are now paid to do. Art and scientific discovery will be the last bastions of human domain, and what parent wouldn’t want to prepare their child for such a future?

While the world around us seems to be in chaos, now is the time to dedicate ourselves to homes that create the thinkers of the future. I’ve raised two scientist/artists myself and while we’re not done, both are well on their way to entering careers in science and technology, while also acting and playing music. There are many things we can do as parents to encourage this, but here are some suggestions to get your own inspiration going.

1. Read your children fairy tales

Albert Einstein once said, “If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” Since I’m a voracious reader, I wanted to share stories with my kids early on. We started in-utero, with my husband reading to me, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams, while I was pregnant. While that’s not really a fairy tale in the purest sense, it did give both my boys the sense of humor they now carry, as well as their love of science fiction, I’m sure of it. When the eldest was born, I continued the habit by reading him “The Little Prince” while nursing. This solidified the ritual of reading to our children and soon after we got our hands on every fairy tale we could. And not the watered down Disney stuff, my kids were raised on the Brothers Grimm and know the true story of the Little Mermaid (spoiler, she’s not that nice). Essentially, reading fairy tales to children opens up their imaginations and allows them to think the unthinkable, which is the beginning of all innovation.

2. Throw out the TV and computer

Children need to be encouraged to have their own thoughts, and today this is harder than ever. TV, YouTube, the smartphone, all these things seek to program our minds. The more you let your child participate in being fed information rather than creating it, the more you dumb them down. This is fairly intuitive, but if you need facts to convince you that screens are not a child’s friend, then simply Google the effects of screen time on your child’s brain. Don’t worry if your kid gets bored because that’s number three!

3. Let your kid be bored

Don’t entertain them. Limit their after school activities. I know that seems counter-intuitive, don’t you need to have them in coding camp, art lessons and dance class by age 6 to be successful? No. Studies actually now show that the busier the childhood, the less motivated they are as students in high school and college. Better to let them be as children and give them space for unsupervised play. Fill the house with quality toys that encourage imagination: blocks, costumes, puppets, balls, jump ropes, items they can make obstacles courses with, dolls and craft/science supplies. Let them experiment. Let them take apart the broken toaster. Let them get dirty. Let them eat bugs. Let them be kids and let them be bored. When my sons asked me to entertain them I’d say, “That’s why there are two of you, now go play with each other.”

4. Let them play an instrument

You don’t have to start young, but don’t wait too long either. It’s worth the investment. Even if it only happens for a few years, it will encourage them to be more than just good at math and taking tests. And at the same time, it will make them better at math and taking tests.

5. Don’t give them the answer when they ask why

This is so hard, but very effective. When our kids ask why and then we tell them word for word all the details long before they’re intellectually capable, we break their imagination. Again, we fill it with facts, which are rare these days, I know, but young children need to be in awe. Let them figure it out. Instead of telling them, ask, why do you think it is? A young child will have all sorts of crazy answers, let them be. As they get older, they will ask again, and this time have more to say about it. Eventually, they come to find out the answer themselves, either through school, or through reading about it in a book, or hearing the answer in a conversation. Then when they ask why, the time has come to correct them if they have the wrong information, and discuss it further to encourage scientific dialogue. “Why?” is the most important question, especially now, so encourage it by asking them and teaching them to use their minds to create hypotheses, and then discussing those together until the correct answer is found.

Being a parent isn’t easy, but we are our children’s first teachers. Our homes shape society more than any vote we cast or organization we belong to. Within our homes we fashion the minds of the citizens that will inherit the earth. Lao Tzu wrote, “In family life, be present.” 

This then is the great work — raising philosopher scientists — which isn’t only important, it’s also a lot of fun.

Hey Silicon Valley--I Have a Gender Equality Solution for Ya!

There has been a lot of talk for years about women in STEM, from trying to get girls to fall in love with science and technology, to getting women to stay in the workforce once they’re trained, a lot of time and effort has gone into studying this problem. Decades of research, funding and programs later and we still have an issue, almost 40% of women leave the field, yet we’re still not entirely sure why.

I applaud programs that seek to encourage females to enter STEM careers and stick with it. I myself have been lucky enough to have been a part of many. But there is one age group that no one is paying attention to: women in their middle age who majored in engineering, but took time off to raise children, that are now empty-nesters.

I know, I know. Why would anyone bother with a 45 y.o. woman, but hear me out. We spend money on programs to train young girls in the sciences, we spend money on programs to get young women to major in engineering. We spend tons of money trying to figure out how to keep them and support them as they raise their children. Yet that’s where it ends. If you chose to leave to raise your kids, you’re gone, forgotten, and let go. But many of those women are done raising kids, and only in their forties. Why not spend some money re-training them and getting them back into the lab?

According to PewResearch in 2014, 29% of women were stay-at-home-mothers. It’s hard to find the data to see how many of them were STEM majors, but of the 40% of women who leave STEM careers, about a quarter of them do so to raise families. This means they didn’t leave because they no longer love engineering, they just chose to take time to raise their kids.

Many of these women are now in their mid-forties and their kids are on the way to college, which leads me to wonder, just how expensive would it be to train these women to become coders and technology workers today? With all the coding bootcamps out there, as well as other retraining programs, why not recruit from this group of women to fill not only your technology needs, but also to balance gender in the workplace?

A few years back, Apple and other big-name companies began offering female employees money to freeze their eggs, with the idea that they can invest in their careers until their late thirties/early forties, and then begin their families. This goes hand-in-hand with the idea of “Sequencing," made popular by the book by Arleen Rosso Cardozo in the early nineties. The idea being that women can have it all, just maybe not all at once. This works for certain types of women, particularly those who enjoy diving deeply into their careers and find the work/family balance to be too difficult.

We all agree that a woman can begin her family at age forty, and that in some ways, she may make an even better parent than she would have when younger, given her life-experience. Then why not say the same about a woman in her forties and her career? If we’re physically and intellectually capable of handling an infant at forty, we’re certainly physically and intellectually capable of coding in our forties. Having done both, trust me, the infant is way more difficult.

So why not include Gen X female engineers who are done raising their families and ready to return to work in your recruitment plans? Why not spend some money retraining them, and growing your female base from this older stage of life, rather than only investing in young girls and college aged women?

To help get the conversation started, here are five reasons to consider recruiting Gen X engineers who are done raising their kids:

1.       They’re already in love with engineering! You don’t have to convince them math is beautiful, or that software rules the world, they already know this. As young girls they were interested in STEM fields and pursued them in college. They naturally have the mindset of an engineer, raising children doesn’t change that. And many of them have just spent twenty years or so raising their own engineers and science loving offspring, like Kim Moldofsky, The Maker Mom, and many of her website’s followers.

2.       They already have engineering degrees. True, the technology has changed, but most have a foundation in engineering, math or computer science. You might be coding in Javascript and Ruby, but C++ is still the sixth most popular language in GitHub, and most of these women have ten+ years using that language before they took time to raise their families. With this foundation, they can easily be trained how to write code using today’s tools and development environments.

3.       They know how to adult. I hate to say it, but it’s true. Women in their forties got their shit together, and they can manage a performance review just fine. In addition, they don’t suffer the same social media/Tinder/out of control rents/roommate issues that younger employees who are just launching from home are dealing with. A woman who has raised children to adulthood is the ultimate adult herself.

4.       They’re done raising kids. This is a big one, and both men and women wonder how to balance work and family. While we still need to continue the important work of bringing that balance to the workplace, many women in their forties are done with this part of their lives and find themselves empty nesters with lots of time to invest in their careers.

5.       They’re excellent program managers. Many educated SAHMs are deeply involved in their communities and often serve in executive roles on school boards, church leadership committees, and other clubs that their kids are involved in. Many also have blogs, write books, and share their love of technology on social media. They haven’t been lounging around eating bonbons the past twenty years, rather they’ve been putting their managerial and intellectual talents towards the next generation. This means that even though they might not have run an international software release in a while, they have for example, overseen the development of a new building for their kid’s school, or launched a new coding club for their kids, or even founded a soccer or gymnastics team. They drew upon their natural leadership skills to do this work, often for free, as a service to their children and the community at large. This capacity is a part of who they are, and all of those skills transfer to the latest apps being developed in the valley.

So there you have it Silicon Valley. Everyone knows you have a gender issue, and I applaud all of the nationwide programs that serve our girls and young women in this way. All I’m suggesting is taking a look at the 25% of Gen X engineers who left to raise their kids, and encouraging them to come back and be a part of the future of your business. What do you have to lose?

Calling All Parents: Don’t Let Calculus I Be the End!!!!

In a recent article published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), author Maggie Kuo wrote,

“Female college students are 1.5 times more likely than their male counterparts to leave science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) after taking the first course in the calculus series, new research finds. The study, published last week in PLOS ONE, supports what many educators have observed and earlier studies have documented: A lack of confidence in mathematical ability, not mathematical capability itself, is a major factor in dissuading female students from pursuing STEM.”

Even though I’ve been fairly busy coding a conversational AI and trying to figure out just what it means to be a CTO in a Silicon Valley startup, I’ve honestly thought about this almost every day. Just how can it be that one class, one simple yet important class, would drive any students from a career in science, technology, engineering or math? And why would females be more likely than men to do this?

The article went on to explain the study behind this theory and it has the data to back it up. Since then, I’ve read many different articles and opinions, all offering up solutions to academia, while also trying to figure out the female brain. After spending a bit of time mulling it over, I realized something very important: I’m a female, I struggled with the first calculus course in college, and NEVER once did I think it meant that Computer Science wasn’t for me.

When I was a senior in high school, I decided to pursue Computer Science and applied to three Big Ten schools (I grew up in the Midwest and loved football, so Big Ten it was.) I ended up at Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN merely because they sent me my acceptance letter first. That was the extent of my college application cycle. I also had a bad case of senioritis and despite my father telling me I was being a fool, I dropped pre-calculus and went math free my last year of high school. I loved writing software, but didn’t like math. You see how already my narrative is different?

Fast forward to the next fall and I failed the entrance exam for Calculus I. Failed it. I had to take a remedial math class for computer science majors, which was basically the pre-calc class I should have taken in high school. Worse, because I wasn’t in Calculus I, I couldn’t take the first computer science course in the sequence, CS 180, and instead had to take a FORTRAN class with the IT students. Better yet, NEITHER of these classes counted towards my computer science degree. Basically, I was already a semester behind and I hadn’t even started college.

Yet never once did I think I should quit or change majors. Why in the world would I give up a career in software just because I wasn’t a genius at calculus? The thought never occurred to me. Instead, I took the remedial semester and entered Calculus I, as well as CS 180 in the spring and aced them. The remediation set me up for success. It enabled me to become a stronger student. Four years later, I graduated on time and headed out to work for Motorola. I’d forgotten about the whole thing until I read Kuo’s article. Now I’m wondering why I was so blessed, not because I chose CS as a degree, nor even for the chance of remediation, but blessed because I didn’t consider it a failure. Was I embarrassed?  A bit. But walk away from my CS degree? Never.

Now, I don’t consider myself special, but obviously the idea that anyone would quit a STEM degree simply because Calculus I is a pain in the ass doesn’t equate in my mind. And I don’t think this is a result of academia coming to the rescue, but a direct result of my upbringing.

The state of your mind is what paints the reality around you. Something is boring, hard, interesting, easy, or logical based on your viewpoint. Somewhere along the line, our kids are being taught that math is hard. Or only for special people. It also appears that males are better able to overcome this idea and push through, even if they’re not that great at it themselves, yet females take it personally. As if a lack of skill in calculus means you won’t be a good scientist. That’s absolute nonsense.

The issue probably lies somewhere between societal bias and poor math instruction in our schools. There are plenty of articles that make suggestions for improvements in these areas, but in my experience both society and the academia are slow to change. There’s really only one place where girls, and boys for that matter, can be taught that math is for everyone and that a love of science isn’t determined by one’s ease with higher mathematics—the home.

Yes, home is where the heart is, and home is where the future scientists of this world are born. It matters to me that more women enter computer science, not because I love it, but because this is the career of disruption. We’re in the middle of the transition from the Industrial Age to the Information Age and the end result will be what our children make of it. If most of our women, and many of our males, avoid technology because they see Calculus I as a deterrent, then I see a much bleaker view of the future.

The current crop of Silicon Valley hotshots isn’t too impressive when it comes to using technology to improve human lives, but that topic is for next week’s blog. Right now I want to share a few things that parents can do to help their daughters get past the Calculus I gate and into the rich and rewarding world of science and technology.

1.       Starting 5^th grade, get your girls to play hacker/math minded video games.

The first time kids start to hate math is 5/6^th grade. I call this Wall Number 1. Honestly, this is completely reasonable because who really enjoys converting mixed fractions to improper fractions and then subtracting them with denominators as different as night and day? Oh, and include borrowing in that, will you? Yuck. Everyone, except those in love with numbers, hates it. Yes, schools could improve the process, but this is the time where parents need to encourage their kids to not judge math as horrible and instead to see it as the practice of teaching the mind to solve puzzles. Puzzle and logic are the keys to science careers, not irregular fractions.   How to help them believe in themselves? Get them to play video games that use math in a not so obvious way. This is the perfect age to do so. Games like Minecraft, Portal Two and “else Heart.Break().” Many girls like these games, so encourage them to play! This is the age when my dad gave me my first computer and I taught myself how to code in Basic. But today’s children can use beautifully written software to play with mathematical concepts in a real way, in addition to the horrible decimal to fraction lessons. Yes, they still need to learn math in school, but now is the time for parents to help them understand that math is not boring, rather it can also be filled with story, drama and problem solving. Click here for a list of hacker/programming types of games.

2.       Starting middle school, teach them to code

You may have done this sooner, but for those parents who have a girl who’s interested in science, get her to code by eight grade. Why? Because this is just before Wall Number 2: Algebra II—the second mathematical course where many kids fall out of the system. Algebra II isn’t easy, but if you’ve had them playing Minecraft since they were ten, the abstract math course might not feel so horrible. But more importantly, now is the time to teach them that good programming is independent of being super smart at math. Should you study math if you wish to be a part of the scientific community? Yes. But do you have to love it or be a genius to code well? No. When I was in 8^th grade, Apple donated several Mac II’s to my school as well as the money to hire a teacher. As a decent math student, I was invited to take part in the afterschool program and I loved it! I continued coding in Basic all the way through High School, until I took a Pascal class from Sr. Mary Newhart, the sister of the one and only Bob Newhart. (Yes, this is sadly the closest brush of fame I’ve ever had.) It was an all girl’s class, and even though I didn’t even take pre-calc because math bored me so much, I aced programming.

Puberty is the time to let girls know, that success in programming doesn’t mean you have to ace math. Instead it means you must be able to see connections within systems, to follow the problem down the rabbit hole to its solution, and put the pieces of the puzzle back together. Is this mathematical thinking? Yes. Is it Algebra II? No.

Encourage your science-minded daughter to take a programming class by age 12. If there aren’t any at school, send her to the Alexa Café summer camp program, then send her to the other ID Tech camps, or anything similar. Girls Who Code is also a great resource. Use summer to be a time of exploring her mind. Take it into your own hands and show her that programming is more than Algebra II.

3.       Encourage them to take AP Calculus as seniors, but don’t make the grade that important

I know this is hard. College is so difficult to get into and many are tempted to just avoid any classes that might make the GPA go down. It’s too bad you can’t take an AP class as pass/fail. If your high school has that option, then go for it. If not, then encourage your daughter to take the class her senior year, even if it risks lowering her GPA. If she’s applying for a STEM related degree, the college will want to see it in her course schedule anyway.

Have her take it, but don’t force her to sit for the AP exam, unless she’s really gung ho. Do whatever you can to support her. Teach her now that her grade in this class, unless it’s a complete failure, doesn’t reflect how great she’ll be as an engineer, or a food scientist, or a neurobiologist. Taking it now will help prepare her for Calculus I in college, there’s no way around it. Every science degree demands it and for good reason. The study of higher mathematics shouldn’t be reserved only for the brightest among us. Everyone deserves to study it, if not to understand the fundamentals of matter and nature. Furthermore, scientists need the mind training—but you don’t need to get an A in it. Probably not even a B. Again, grades seem to make a millennial tremble with fear and our current generation of females tends to be more perfectionist than in the past, but don’t give in. A “B-“ in AP Calculus will be the thing that enables your daughter to go into her first year of college prepared and ready to study. She can get through that Calculus I requirement with ease and then blow on by to the good stuff. There’s no reason she can’t.

So don’t give into the fear. Encourage her to go for it. Get her tutoring if she needs it. Do whatever it takes to show your daughter that she’s more than that grade, that instead she’s a critical thinker, and has every right to pursue a career in science and technology, even if she doesn’t love math.

Math is Beautiful--Don't Give it Up!

Lately I’ve seen a lot of blogs and articles claiming that the teaching of Algebra is holding our kids back. Many students are failing the subject and it’s often listed as the number one academic reason for high-school drop-out. Considered the gatekeeper for students’ careers, many are beginning to call for it to be removed from our curriculum. Roger C. Shank, a cognitive scientist and education reformer makes a simple argument for this in his Washington Post op-ed piece. While I agree that our educational system leaves much to be desired when it comes to truly preparing our students for the future, removing higher mathematics and related sciences from our studies will move the subjects once more into the realm of mastery and the elites, and this will significantly limit us as a society.

The study of the natural world, and mathematics, the language to describe these systems, were actually developed within the structure of mystery schools. Only those with the qualifications were allowed entry. They followed strict rules about how they lived their lives and in return worked together to solve some of the greatest mysteries of that time.The famous Greek mathematician, Pythagoras' school is a perfect example of this. Their science was treated like a religion and entry into their cult was incredibly difficult. Their information was tightly guarded, shared only with initiates, yet all they were really doing was satisfying their curiosity. Like the research labs of our universities, these men were looking out at the world around them and studying it, learning from nature and then trying to describe it and prove it with their equations. While the rest of the world toiled with everyday living, the masters and elites understood how life really worked, how it was created and how we ourselves are a part of this greater mystery.

Mathematics is so much more than simple arithmetic. We can all agree that sixth grade math is something we use, from balancing our bank accounts to building a garden bed. But higher mathematics gives us a peek at something bigger—the construction of the universe itself. Geometry shows us the basic forms of matter. Spheres, squares, rhomboids and cones. Each of these govern how life appears in its physical shape. Understanding Pi, or 3.14159…, allows the student to begin to see that while everything has order, things are also irrational. When we open our eyes to the beauty of these shapes, we begin to appreciate life on Earth and the harmony in which matter exists.

Higher mathematics also teaches us about the unknown. Solving the quadratic equation is not something I’ve done since college, I agree. Yet learning how to take variables and solve for them, to look for data and search for balance in my equations, made me a much better software engineer. A typical software application deals with the mundane, but how you code it, how much memory it takes, the speed in which it runs, and what sort of functions you will call, are all unknowns that you must make manifest. Years studying higher level mathematics enabled me to do just that. Once you’ve studied vector spaces, everything else looks easy.

I hear you. You’re not going to be an engineer so enough of the STEM stuff. Well, there are the practicalities that go with this. Algebra I and II as well as geometry are required to get into most colleges. However, a recent study also found that algebra isn’t just for the college bound. Most careers such as an electrician, plumber or upholsterer--jobs that will pay you enough to feed your family but don’t require a college degree--still require freshman college level math skills to succeed. But that’s not reason enough to study the subject. Life itself follows patterns, it grows and replicates according to mathematical principles and knowing these patterns makes you a better citizen of Earth.

Take the pine cone, whose growth pattern follows the Fibonacci sequence. As a matter of fact, most plants do. This leads us to the Golden Mean, a proportion after which even the human body is modeled. Knowing how you’re built, how a seed germinates, how a tree grows its branches shouldn’t be left to those who are the smartest. These aren’t elite subjects, for each of us is a part of nature and has every right to learn about it. And it’s beautiful. Check out Vi Hart’s work on these subjects, Doodling in Math Class. These videos alone show how amazing math is and it’s relation to our lives.
                I believe that the issue here isn’t that we can’t learn algebra and geometry, it’s that our schools have killed the curriculum. It was a gift when our country decided to teach as many as possible the subjects of reading, writing and arithmetic. There is power in all three of these things and their study leads to a more open society. However forcing kindergarteners to read and learn their multiplication tables isn’t the solution. Five year old children weren’t admitted to Pythagoras’ school. A person had to learn to live in the world physically before they were shown the mental mysteries of the universe. As a result of our pushing early academics and standardizing our teaching methods, we’ve removed the awe and wonder that is natural to the study of math and science, and as a result, many kids are failing these very important subjects.

Rather than remove Algebra from our lives, why not change the way we teach it? Inspire children to learn about the world around them, rather than scare them into learning a subject. Show them how the pine cone grows and how the ancients used the chord functions of a circle to figure out how tall the Great Pyramid was. Without ladders and precision equipment we’re able to know these things because matter follows mathematical principles. We shouldn’t give up simply because we’ve forgotten how to teach others how to learn. It isn’t just the “smart kids” who benefit from these subjects. We all do.

Practicing Discipline in Scientific Endeavor

In 518 BC, the Greek mathematician, Pythagoras, founded a school in which the topics of mathematics, music and philosophy were studied with great discipline and secrecy. Men and women were welcome to live in community and study together, and eventually this group of individuals would contribute much to the subject of mathematics, including:

1. The sum of the angles of a triangle is equal to two right angles.
2. The theorem of Pythagoras - for a right-angled triangle the square on the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides. The Babylonians understood this 1000 years earlier, but Pythagoras proved it.
3. Constructing figures of a given area and geometrical algebra. For example they solved various equations by geometrical means.
4. The discovery of irrational numbers is attributed to the Pythagoreans, but seems unlikely to have been the idea of Pythagoras because it does not align with his philosophy the all things are numbers, since number to him meant the ratio of two whole numbers.
5. The five regular solids (tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, icosahedron, dodecahedron). It is believed that Pythagoras knew how to construct the first three but not last two.
6. Pythagoras taught that Earth was a sphere in the center of the Cosmos (Universe), that the planets, stars, and the universe were spherical because the sphere was the most perfect solid figure. He also taught that the paths of the planets were circular. Pythagoras recognized that the morning star was the same as the evening star, Venus.  (Source)

Most mathematicians would agree that the work of Pythagoras and his followers changed the subject forever. When looking at his school and the pedagogy, it’s obvious that the schooling was about more than math. Music and art, especially geometry in art, were very important. Pythagoras felt that these subjects were intimately linked to mathematics, and to study one meant to study all three.

Most peculiar were the philosophical aspects to this training. The School maintained that every human had a soul and that through math and music, the soul could be purified. In addition, strict procedures were in place to facilitate the growth of each person’s soul, from giving up their possessions to being vegetarian, to regular meditative practices. All of these things were part of the curriculum.

Of course, this spiritual aspect of the school’s training is often seen as religious, and rightly so. For the ancients, God and Science were one. This remained up through the Reformation and Enlightenment, when Science finally broke free from superstition and set about to conquer the world and take it from God. Overall, we have countless reasons to give thanks for this—from the Inquisition, to the discrediting of Galileo, to the burning of libraries, to the witch hunts—religious dogma has proven itself dangerous, not only to science, but humanity in general.

Yet here we are, about three hundred years into Science without God, and I sense that we might have thrown the baby out with the bathwater. While superstitious beliefs often stand in the way of progress, the “spiritual” discipline that religion brought to the scientist was not without its merits. We may teach that we are just a bunch of atoms and molecules randomly bopping around in the universe, but it doesn’t take a PhD to see that something else exists within us—call it consciousness if we must. Or the observer. That part of our system that decides what to do. That part of humanity, and many other animals as well, that lives and is obviously not there at death. This could just be energy, but it’s a force none-the-less and when left unchecked, can wreak havoc on those around it.

Angry children are annoying. Angry adults are terrifying. When we maintain that our physical bodies are the only real part of us, we run the risk of letting that emotional, conscious part of us, run amok. The “soulful” practices in Pythagoras’ curriculum made sure that each scientist took the time to understand themselves, their deepest selves. To know their weaknesses, to see their instincts of fear and domination, and overcome them. Discipline is the way towards “knowing thyself” and in many ways the lack of this practice in our scientific pedagogy is partially to blame for the various negative ways we’ve used technology over the centuries. It’s easy to use our inventions to dominate others if we have no control over our own greed, anger, fear and frustration.

I believe that the heart of Pythagoras’ curriculum was to first see yourself for who you really are, identify your threat to others, and overcome that, all while studying the wonders of mathematics, astronomy, architecture and music. He believed that studying these subjects, when coupled with fasting, the giving up of belongings and living in community, would create the ideal school from which new innovation and ideas would come forth. Ideas that would change the world for the better.

We now hold in the palm of our hand the ability to modify our genes, create super-children in labs, nuke an entire city and blow a hole in the atmosphere. We also hold the keys to solving global hunger, sheltering every human being, and extending life while curing most disease. When our scientific training is devoid of any hint at truly knowing thyself, and actually denies the importance of practices such as meditation, exercise, eating well and serving others as key to any good pedagogy, what sort of direction will our scientific innovation take?

We don’t have to go to church, or believe in Jesus, Allah or God to know that within us lies a power beyond mere atoms. Call it what you will—consciousness, soul, spirit or, for those of you who have read my eHuman novels, the Lux—there’s a part of each human making decisions. It’s the part we hope to download into computers someday. That part of us is every bit as important as our memory or ability to learn advanced technological concepts. Modern practices such as learning a new instrument, meditating every day, exercising, and serving in the community at large helps to discipline our nature and get us in touch with who we really are. Life is more than getting a good degree at our top universities. As scientists, we owe it to the world to take the time to invest in getting to know our deeper nature, and ask the questions that are so hard for science to answer.

“Who am I?”

“Why am I here?”

“What is my purpose?”

“How might I serve?”

Come On Girls, Code With Me!

“Computing has seeped into every corner of the economy. It is the new literacy. A basic understanding of how computers work and what they can do is becoming increasingly important in landing a 21st century job.”

 

“The dearth of women in computing has the potential to slow the U.S. economy, which needs more students in the pipeline to feed its need for more programmers.”

~ Mike Cassidy, Mercury News Columnist

It’s been in the news a lot lately. Women make up 50% of the users of technology, but hold only 17.6% of Computer Science degrees. Why is there such an imbalance? I’ve been reading about it and find myself stumped…it doesn’t make any sense.

As a woman who pursued Computer Science in the early 90’s, I’m often asked what it’s like to be the only female in the room. I’ve heard that many women experience sexism at the workplace and feel left out in the career. But I did not experience that. Yes, I was often one of the only women in the room, and I noticed it, but never one did I think I shouldn’t be there, or that my ideas wouldn’t be heard. Never once did any man in the room tell me that I didn’t belong.

Never once did I look at a professor and think, “He isn’t like me, I’m not sure I belong here.” Instead I thought, “I’m here to learn what he knows, and use it to make a living.”

As I’ve moved from programming to writing, I find myself again in the male dominated worlds of film and science fiction. And again I’m asked, “What’s it like to be a woman in a field full of men?”

I’m going to be honest in this blog—for me, it isn’t strange at all to be a woman working with men. Men are human, just like me, and many of them happen to like the same things I do. Often people try to blame the lack of women in STEM on the fact that it’s a men’s club, and perhaps that’s true, but no one has ever pulled me aside and said, “Hey, Lady, you don’t belong here.” Instead I found myself writing code, debugging, system testing, drinking beer and playing softball with my colleagues, who happened to be mostly men, and I enjoyed all of it.

Here in Silicon Valley, the tech firms are trying to figure out how to create a sense of workplace parity. They often point to the lack of women to hire. Truth is, the pipeline is pretty empty in general at this moment.  As Mike Cassidy states in his article for the Mercury News,

“The damage starts with a problem that is already being confronted by the tech industry and other companies that rely on computing talent (which means practically all of them): The economy is creating far more computing jobs than U.S. schools are creating computer science graduates.”

We will experience a slowdown in our economy if we can’t fill these jobs, which means the current generation of kids needs to be encouraged to at least look at careers in computing. And this, of course, should include women. Why not? Girls are just as capable as boys in this realm. And these are high-paying jobs—all of our children ignore them to their peril.

Jocelyn Goldfein, sees this as a historic moment in history, where women could flock to careers in computer science like women flocked to the factories in WWII. “I really think this is kind of a Rosie the Riveter moment," says Goldfein, a director of engineering at Facebook.

Which is why so many organizations and colleges are trying to get more women into their ranks. Yet so many of the solutions being tossed around weren’t necessary for someone like me, a sorority girl, to jump into programming. However, there are some things I experienced that might help recruit more girls into this career, and it's all about education.

First of all, I began coding at age 12. I think this is important for all children. In my case, my first computer science teacher was female, hired to teach those of us identified as “excellent” in math twice a week. In addition, my math teacher at the time, who was also my Mathcounts coach, was female. According to research, because I saw myself in these women, it wasn’t much of a stretch for me to think I could be good at these subjects.

So perhaps one solution is to have more women teach math and computer science to middle schoolers. I can’t say for sure that worked for me, but it was my experience. Yet my work with strong women didn’t stop there. I went on to attend an ALL GIRLS high school, and I firmly believe that this is what makes me able to be in a room of mostly men and work alongside them, without feeling different.

My teachers at my ALL GIRLS high school were women. My Trigonometry and Pre-Calculus teachers, my Biology and Chemistry teachers and, best of all, my Computer Science teacher. There were only eight of us who took her class, but Sr. Newhart (yes, she was Bob Newhart’s sister) was a great instructor and under her tutelage I learned Pascal and Fortran. What a woman!

Truth be told, I love computers and I love men. I love working with both and have always found the experience enjoyable. Perhaps then, the issue isn’t that men don’t want women working with them, but rather for some reason women somehow think they can’t. Perhaps having females teach me math and computer science from age 12 – 18 shaped my confidence.Do most boys see men in those roles and follow them in the same way? If this is true, then would replacing women with men as teachers to this age group make men less interested in math and science? What good would that do?

Maybe separating the sexes during puberty is powerful for both of men and women? Perhaps letting us learn from our elders, without the need to be attractive to the opposite sex, frees our intellect in a way that builds confidence that can never be taken from us? That once we’ve mastered our minds, we can integrate in college and the workplace in less stereotypical ways? If so, this might just be the case for single-sex education, which is something I NEVER see in the list of ways to get women interested in technology.

But it might just be the answer.

***In the meantime, I've begun speaking to middle and high schoolers about the creative career of coding. If you're looking for someone to share her experiences in this field, and how this has helped me launch a career in science fiction, contact Brighter Brains. I'd love to share my professional journey with your kids, boys and GIRLS!