Science is Natural for Everyone

Someone's been reading this blog.

Well maybe not, but Girls Love Science. We Tell Them Not To. from The Daily Beast echoes the points I've been trying to make - that so many of the attempts to get girls interested in STEM start from a premise that science is unnatural.  The article quotes astrophysicist Katie Mack who says "Gender-based socialization, and messages [ ] that tell girls that science is an unnatural thing for them to do, are incredibly pervasive in our culture."

The article is a spectacular take-down of the idea that science has to be made "girly" to be appealing to girls.  It tells us to toss aside the notion that "[g]irls will love science, [as] the EU has suggested, because Bunsen burners look like lipstick and fiber-optic cables are sort of like powder brushes."

Finally, the article quotes another female astrophysicist, Meg Urry, who notes "Discrimination isn’t a thunderbolt, it isn’t an abrupt slap in the face. It’s the slow drumbeat of being underappreciated, feeling uncomfortable and encountering roadblocks along the path to success."

A+++++ would read again!

Boosting CS Enrollment With Separate Pitches for Boys and Girls

An article I read on Slashdot a little while back points out that Georgia Tech is sending targeted letters to parents of high school students who score well on the PSAT to encourage those students to take Advanced Placement Computer Science.  These letters, as well as other materials are available on Georgia Tech's Institute for Computer Education website.

Great, right?  Kids often need extra encouragement to get the confidence to try something new.  These letters send a strong positive message.  But, there's a twist... they send out two very different letters - one for parents of girls and one for parents of boys.

I love that they're doing this outreach, but I'm always skeptical when people use gender-based stereotypes to attempt to improve the gender balance in STEM.  These efforts can end up fueling the problem they are attempting to extinguish.  Below I step through all of the differences and offer suggestions to improve the letters.

Don't Mess Up (Or Keep Trying Until You Succeed)

There are many awesome things about being a woman in a field dominated by men, but one of the less awesome things is the fear of having your failures held against not just yourself but all women.  Piled Higher and Deeper has a great take on this from the perspective of the woman and xkcd takes it on from the perspective of (some) men:

So obviously, the solution if you are a woman is never to make a mistake.  But let's be honest, you will.  Making mistakes is an important part of learning.  When you make that inevitable mistake or two or ten, it's tempting to give up and walk away.  Don't do it.  If you do, you don't have the opportunity to show everyone that you can get it right.  They'll only be able to remember you for the failure and not the triumph.

Tech or Something Else? Why Not Both?

Talking to high school students, one of the most common things I hear is in the form "I really like [STEM field] but I have a passion for [arts/humanities field]."  As in, "I really love science, but I'm really into music" or "I love math, but I really want to study French."  College catalogs and job descriptions conspire to give people the impression that you have to pick just one field, and nothing could be further from the truth.

Technology touches nearly every aspect of society. Everything from advertising to zoo-keeping has benefited from technology.  The innovations that enable game-changing improvements often come from people who have a passion and experience in two or more fields. Combining substantive knowledge in one area with technical know-how creates a very powerful combination.

Have Confidence to Learn by Teaching

JennyxYoung

Lack of confidence is one of the biggest roadblocks to success, especially in STEM fields.  By now, it is well known that Impostor Syndrome, which disproportionately impacts professional women (but affects many men as well), causes the affected to doubt themselves and ultimately under-perform their potential.  Related confidence deficiencies cause women to downplay their successes in performance reviews, not apply for positions unless they are certain they meet 100% of the qualifications, and dwell on any minor shortcoming.  You don't have to get to the workforce for these confidence issues to crop up - they happen in school as well.

In Math is Hard, But So Is Everything Else, I wrote about how it's natural to feel stuck at times.  But how can we get unstuck?  One way is to try to teach someone else the concepts you barely understand.   Doing this requires healthy dose of confidence, but it doesn't require you to actually be an expert. 

2^11

Sometimes the best way to learn is to not realize you're learning.  The game 2048 is like that.  The goal is very simple - you combine merge blocks of the same number into one with the combined value.  For example, if you combine two '4' blocks (2^2), you make one '8' block (2^3).  Two '8' blocks make a 16 block (2^4) and so on.  The goal is to create a 2048 block (2^11).  After each move, a block appears randomly somewhere on the board - usually a 2, but sometimes a 4.

This is a very fun and natural way to get comfortable with powers of 2, which is an important concept in computing.  I'm sure the creator of this game did not intend it to be an educational game, but it's just one of the little ways that you can pick up important concepts in unconventional ways.

No, I'm not writing a blog post solely to justify the hours I've wasted playing this game.  Why do you ask?

Pi is for Everyone

Source: Wikipedia

The formulas, jargon, and code in this post may not be the best way to prove that STEM is for everyone, but it's Pi Day, and I think it's good to keep in mind that things we take for granted now were once considered extremely difficult.  According to CNN, it's cool to like pi.

So today, in honor of Pi Day, I decided to refresh my memory and sharpen my programming skills by implementing Viète's Forumla. Viète's formula, developed in 1593, expands on the Archimedes method of approximating pi developed around 250 B.C.  This method relies on computing the circumference of regular polygons with many sides. As you increase the sides of the polygon, it gets closer and closer to being a circle, and thus, the ratio of the perimeter to the "diameter" gets closer to the value of pi.

Math Is Hard - But So Is Everything Else

The first time I swung a golf club, I missed the little white ball entirely (and the second time I made pretty solid contact with the big green ball - ouch!).  Once I started hitting the golf ball reliably, it didn't go very far. Once I started to hit it a bit farther, it didn't go where I wanted.  And once it started going more or less where I wanted, I couldn't figure out how to shape my shots.  And so on.  At each step, I was tempted to give up - unsure if I would ever be good enough to play with friends and colleagues (and frankly, I still am).  But the truth is that I always could get better with some more practice.

Like golf, math takes practice.  "I'm not good at math" is just code for "I don't want to practice anymore." And just like you can get muscle fatigue and reach a point where practicing is counterproductive, you can get brain fatigue as well.  But if you give yourself a chance to recover and come back to it later, maybe try a different approach or work on a different skill, you will be able to get past it.  

I think this video sends a pretty compelling "stick with it" message and I'd encourage anyone who thinks they don't have a brain for math to watch it:

Making STEM Interesting: Programming Edition

As careers go, being an engineer is pretty great. Engineers tend to work fewer hours than other comparably paid professions, and engineers report a higher job satisfaction than most other professions as well.  But the problem is that while being an engineer isn't that hard, becoming an engineer can be.  Engineering is considered one of the hardest majors at college, and it's even harder without a strong foundation before that.  It's not easy to convince a teenager that it's worth all the extra work now for a payoff in the distant future.

So the payoff needs to be immediate.  And it can be.  In this post, I'll focus on programming.  What really motivates me to write computer programs is the ability to do something useful and/or fun.  In particular, I like to be able to see immediate visual results as proof that I am doing something.

Some examples of relatively easy projects with high visual impact after the jump:

Fictional Role Models

Many of us see more scientists and engineers in TV and movies than we do in real life.  These images shape our perception of what scientists and engineers look like and how they are supposed to act - even when the plot is wholly unrealistic.

My favorite portrayals of female scientists and engineers in the movies are where it is so natural that you don't realize there is anything weird.  When it seems authentic and believable that the woman you see would be in her position.  Where the woman is a full-fledged member of the team and not there primarily to be someone's love interest or merely to be a token female.  Where the woman is competent and qualified (though not necessarily perfect). Where as the show develops she may encounter some of the sexism that is far too common in technical fields, but where highlighting those kinds of problems is not the reason she is in the show.

Some of my favorite examples of this after the jump.  Post your favorites in the comments.