How CMU increased number of women in CS from 7% to 37% [pdf]

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~lblum/PAPERS/TransformingTheCulture.pdf

by rmanocha • 17 years ago

27 25 17 years ago

cs.cmu.edu

quellhorst• 17 years ago

I tried to find out how, but there was too much filler to find the reason in under a few minutes.

maggie• 17 years ago

I didn't re-read it, but from what I remember, they started an intensive effort to both retain women who started in computing classes as well as understand the reasons why less women start computing and continue.

They had a smaller usegroup they used for their study and show that women drop out thinking that they're not doing as well as men in the same classes when really, they're doing about above average.

barry-cotter• 17 years ago

A variety of things.

Discrimination against ubernerds In addition to demonstrated academic competence, the Admissions Office began giving more weight to non-academic factors, looking for applicants with leadership potential and a commitment to give back to the community.

Mentoring Programme The most extensive single activity of the Women@SCS Advisory Council has been the Big Sister/Little Sister program, which pairs upper-class and graduate students with firstyear and sophomore CS majors.

Changing emphasis/delivery of (introductory) courses Even more, insights provided by the Council are likely to have profound impact on the curriculum. In her green paper circulated at a meeting with faculty, senior Ting-Chih Shih clearly pointed out that the current CS undergraduate curriculum serves male students far better than females. For one, the entry programming courses favor students with more experience (usually men) who seem to get better scores effortlessly As a result, many women begin thinking that learning computer science takes innate talent and no amount of hard work will pay off They start to lose confidence and forget their initial interest in computer science Moreover, the way lectures are presented seem to appeal to men more. In general, females feel that the birds-eye view of a problem, and the end result, are more relevant than the coding details in between

tigerthink• 17 years ago

>In general, females feel that the birds-eye view of a problem, and the end result, are more relevant than the coding details in between

Doesn't this suggest that men are more likely to be wired for programming?

ShardPhoenix• 17 years ago

Sounds like the main thing they did was to emphasize that no previous programming experience was needed to study CS there.

mahmud• 17 years ago

It's only 6 pages, and clearly says:

"The findings of this study have been well documented elsewhere and we will not go into details here."

The paper is a summary and synthesis of an entire project, see some of their publications here:

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/gendergap/www/papers/

Their approach is multi-pronged and involved:

1) Meticulous study of male and female CS students' attitudes towards computer science education. "Funded by Sloan, the project consisted of hundreds of interviews with both male and female CS students about their histories with computing, interests, motivations and aspirations, reasons for majoring in CS, and their experiences in the undergraduate program. Conducted over a four-year period, the project was able to track many students throughout their time at Carnegie Mellon. By interviewing students once a semester."

2) Education of new teachers of Advanced Placement (AP) Exam for Computer Science in a teacher summer school and alerting them to the gender gap in computing. This summer school took place in CMU, and since it was addressing gender gap, CMU became some sort of Mecca for those who who care about women's involvement in computing.

3) Revamping of the admissions process. "In addition to demonstrated academic competence, the Admissions Office began giving more weight to non-academic factors, looking for applicants with leadership potential and a commitment to “give back to the community.” These broadened criteria also became important in awarding financial aid .. About the same time, Allan Fisher also conveyed to the Admissions Office his goal of a gender-balanced program. He felt it was important to get the message out that “no prior programming experience is necessary” to enter the CMU computer science program. The image of a CS student as someone (usually male) who has played with computers since early childhood is widespread. This often discourages many otherwise talented students from applying to a computer science program."

4) "A Supportive Community: The Women@SCS Advisory Council: The Women@SCS Advisory Council was created in the fall of 1999 and has since met weekly during the academic year. Membership includes undergraduates representing all four years and graduate students representing the various departments within SCS*". 9

gritzko• 17 years ago

>> Admissions Office began giving more weight to non-academic factors, looking for applicants with leadership potential and a commitment to “give back to the community.”

Oh, God! What is the plan? Train students in "leadership" and "networking", leave boring technical stuff to those nerds in India or China?

zandor• 17 years ago

My university used a rather simple bait and switch trick with the degree names and changed the name of power engineering to a more friendly energy and environmental engineering.

It actually worked pretty well. There was a significant increase in female students and they didn't change to another degree later.

catch23• 17 years ago

Hm, interesting. Maybe computer science needs a new hip name to increase enrollment. We could call it "Autonomous Human Sociology".

forensic4• 17 years ago

So they increased female students by...

1. Giving female students special benefits and privileges.

1.1. Access to Big Sister program.

1.2. Special female-only clubs.

1.3. Special favour in admissions.

1.4. Special favour in high school.

2. Stopped evaluating new students on ability in computer science (which is based, like anything else, on experience) and started evaluating them on extracurriculars and intangibles.

Does this seem kind of fucked to anyone else? They basically threw merit out the window because they'd rather have diversity than talent. Are math programs going to start admitting people who have no experience or proven ability in math now, because those people do more charity work than math nerds? Are chemistry students going to be chosen for their leadership ability rather than scientific ability?

eb• 17 years ago

I don't think you understand how college admissions work. Students are generally accepted based on their overall academic record. Grades, SAT score, extracurriculars, etc.

Students are not accepted to CS programs because they've written a lot of prior code. I'm sure most incoming chemistry students have not spent time inside a lab outside of their high school chemistry class. College is where you specialize in a particular field so students are accepted based on their overall aptitude and not experience in a specific subject.

forensic4• 17 years ago

... of course I understand how college admissions work. Do you assume that I am a total idiot or something? :)

"the Admissions Office began giving more weight to non-academic factors, looking for applicants with leadership potential and a commitment to “give back to the community.” These broadened criteria also became important in awarding financial aid."

They changed the weighting to emphasize intangibles such as charity and "leadership potential".

"He felt it was important to get the message out that “no prior programming experience is necessary” to enter the CMU computer science program."

They changed the weighting to de-emphasize experience - which is the #1 correlate to ability.

"I'm sure most incoming chemistry students have not spent time inside a lab outside of their high school chemistry class."

But if there was a student who spent time outside the lab, they would give that student special consideration because of proven ability and interest in the field. It just so happens that the majority of CS students are going to have experience outside the computer lab, because in this world everyone has their own computer. Most people don't have their own chemistry lab.

yummyfajitas2• 17 years ago

Incidentally, this scheme will only work at an elite college. Giving preferences in admission (as of 2000, acceptance rates are 39% to 9% for women and men respectively) will tend to result in less qualified students. But if you are a top school, it probably won't matter -- there are more top applicants than slots.

Though even at CMU, watering down the applicants seems to be an issue. Women leave CS at a much higher rate than men.

So all this really does is increase the number of women at CMU. It doesn't increase the number of women in CS, since the women CMU admits might have just gone to Rutgers instead.

Numbers taken from the extended article:

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~lblum/PAPERS/women_in_computer_scienc...

srn• 17 years ago

According to their research, women started out with much less confidence but by the junior year it has started to level out when the classes become more difficult for both genders. See section "Gap Between Perceived and Actual Ability" and "Confidence Gap Narrows"

Also see "Geek Mythology: Lore about Being in CS" specifically "It is important to note that most of the CS students (both male and female) we interviewed feel they do not match the stereotype: their interests are varied (including sports, theater, poetry) and not isolated to computer science. "

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/gendergap/www/papers/si....

This paper expounds more on the view that a student must be absorbed in computers 24/7 and that women's perception is that they must be this way to succeed: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/gendergap/www/papers/an... men who are not like that still feel like they can be successful in computer science under "The Non-Hacker Male" from that paper.

Based on this information, I believe the stereotypes are self perpetuating and breaking the feedback loop will help a lot. I ask that you personally help by keeping an open mind.

anamax• 17 years ago

The author says that retention is important but I didn't see anything about either retention or graduation rates. If the "extra" women aren't graduating at a reasonable rate, did admitting them do them any good? Or, is that the wrong question?

Looking at the numbers, we see a change from 89 men and 7 women (96 total) to 83 men and 49 women (132 total) enrolled.

Looking at admission rates shows us how it was done. The women's admission rates were basically unchanged, from 34% to 36%, so the increase in women admitted and enrolled is due almost entirely to the increase in applications by women. At the same time, the overall admission rates dropped from 26% to 12%. Since the population has only two components, men and women, and the rates for women were unchanged means that the admission rates for men dropped significantly.

I wonder what relationship the admissions criteria have to success in the program.

However, the numbers suggest another question. What about the guys who were displaced by women? (There were at least 6 and no men got any of the "expansion" slots.) They get the same benefits that the rest of us get from more women in CMU CS, but they "paid" more than the rest of us. ("But for" the decision to admit women on a different scale, they would have gotten in.) Shouldn't they be compensated?

How CMU increased number of women in CS from 7% to 37% [pdf]

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