For years, I was surrounded by people who would react astonishingly when I told them my academic profession. In high school it was physics, in Fudan University it was computer science, and I’m beginning statistics - all fields that aren’t as common for girls. “Wow…” they’d say, as they scanned me from face to toes.
It would be unreasonable if I claim that I had never questioned my choice, especially during the adaptation period into computer science as a rookie. I can still recall the desperation I felt in my first program designing class. I could not correctly run the simplest problems, like the existing program on my textbook. Computer science was a favorable choice for my undergraduate study with the logical thinking it represents, the close tie it has with math, and most importantly its applicability to various fields. Meanwhile, its requirement of a switch on thinking pattern and totally fresh body of knowledge was a challenge. If anyone told me at that time that I would one day label information technology as a powerful tool, and thus find the interaction of computer science and statistics intriguing, I would at most shrug and sneer.
Accordingly, I received admiration from family and friends from this struggling process of adaptation. Day by day, I wrote programs, dealt with errors, rewrote programs, over and over again. The process was dull and offered no glorious anecdotes. It was the time I spent working on the most fundamental problems and the piles of books borrowed from the library that constituted the foundation of my future progress. During the debugging and reviewing, I gradually adjusted to the logic of machine, which enables me to handle different programming languages with more haste.
Obtaining experien...
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...kills will well make up for my lack of system study in fundamental statistics, and further bring an emphasis on the actual application of statistics. It does not, however, indicate that I have underestimated the difficulty I am to face in finding my place in the new field. On the contrary, I fully recognize it. I have already had the experience of entering a totally strange world when starting to study computer science. I am now searching for an opportunity to prove that with my former training of computer science during the last three years in one of the best advanced educational institutions in China, my well-built systematic mathematical knowledge, and superb ability of communication and adaptation, my entrance into your program will not only be a giant leap for myself, but also the catalyst toward collision of different thinking patterns in the whole program.
Today’s college students have the opportunity and freedom to choose their major and their career path. Many factors influence the decision of a college student’s career paths including background, general interests, personal strengths, time commitment, and job outlook. Although many important decisions are made in college, one of the most important is the choice of major and career track. Out of hundreds of majors the science and engineering fields are under-represented by women. Although the numbers of women in science technology, engineering, and mathematics, STEM, majors has been increasing in the past years, women still are in the minority in the STEM fields. In her study, Lona Whitmarsh concluded, “that career opportunities for women have widened,” but “not enough change has occurred to show significant differences between the overall population” (49). It is good that more women are entering these fields, but there are still not enough young women aspiring to fill the gaps. Further statistics show that female representation in engineering continues to be low, “in 2008 only 19 percent of bachelor’s degrees, 22.9 percent of masters, and 14.8 percent of PhDs in engineering were awarded to women” (Bystydzienski 2). Although there has been a general increase of women entering the fields of science and mathematics, overall the numbers are still low, showing that women struggle in pursuing a degree within these fields, and that many factors can lead to a female not choosing to begin or complete college in a STEM major. Women are in the minority of STEM fields.
Introduction to the basic concepts of probability and statistics with discussion of applications to computer science.
As I opened the front door of the IBM Building, my next chapter in life began. My eyes widen as I observed my teacher writing code on the smartboard. Uneasiness and fear rushed down my spine. I was the only person among fourteen girls without prior knowledge of coding. I spent eight hours in a confined room learning how to code. My computer science teacher appointed assignments in HTML and Python.
In a study conducted by Mary Fox, she found that preferences for academic careers in research universities are higher among men, whereas preferences for academic careers in teaching at colleges or universities is higher among women. Preferences can be established early in the child’s life, whether it is from childhood socialization or experiences in the classroom. These preferences play a role as an intervening factor that can reflect individual inclinations and expectations of what is deemed feasible by both gender and the field in science. For example, in an evaluation study by Shelly Correll, participants were asked to assess their own competence at a particular task. The assessments they made either increased or decreased their emerging aspirations for paths that required competence at that certain task. When men and women make different assessments of their own competence, gender differences emerge with respect to aspirations for paths requiring some level of task ability. Prospects, on the other hand, can be influenced by the individual’s perception of possibilities.
Study Purpose: This study examines “the impact of occupation stereotypes and life goals related to career status, family, and helping others on career interests” (Barth 2015: 502). Summary of Literature Review: Barth introduces the idea of the “leaky pipeline” by Goulden (2010), to explain the phenomenon that occurs when women don’t feel like they can choose a career in STEM field and the one’s who do choose to go into a STEM career dropout at a higher rate than men. Theoretical and/or conceptual approach:
When I started my college career, I had an idea in mind. It was “I want a computer science degree!”, and I have to say, after this first term, that thought has not changed. I mean, not enough time has passed to consider changing major at this point. According to Clifton, Anderson & Schreiner (2006) “anywhere from 60 to 85% of entering college students change their major at least one” (p. 236). I hope not to be part of this statistic. I hope to continue on through with the major that I have chosen.
This was the truth; I wasn't ready to give up on science-related career path that I planned on my whole life. I soon began to realize that I was not going to spend my life in a job just because it made me look smart to everyone else. In a few short months, my intended field of study changed from biology and pre-vet to undecided to
When I was in middle school, I had totally no idea of what Computer Science is, but I was pretty proficient in using computers at that age. The only thing that I knew about Computer Science is that one of my aunts is in that field and that’s all, nor of my parents are in that major. Not until in High School that I got the sense of what programming is like. I was taught basic simple codings and I really enjoyed it and thought that the class was actually quite fun. But the class didn’t give me any sense of the important real-world applications of Computer Science. Not until recently as I am in the Computer Science major, I started to really have the real idea and to gain real passion for the field. Computer Science is not all about programming.
Being loyal has given me the fundamental human skills, such as responsibility, consideration and decency. As a student at Detroit Mercy, following Jesuit ideals has allowed me to practice these values to integrate them into a permanent way of life. Values must be structured, consistent and practiced to be legitimate. Staying loyal to your values helps build and maintain your character, which, at the end of the day, is all we have. I understand the positive effects loyalty creates as I now embrace Ignatian values in order to pursue high-reaching goals in life.
“Most good programmers do programming not because they expect to get paid or get adulation by the public, but because it is fun to program.” Said by Linus Torvalds, the chief architect of the Linux kernel, these words fill a computer programmer’s mind with both the intention and reason for why they chose the job. With the increase in the creation of computers and hardware products on the market, the need for computer programmers has grown greatly over the past couple of years. A computer systems programmer’s main job is to upgrade old systems or design a new system to meet the needs of a business company (“Computer Systems Programmer/ Analysts). They also write application programs to solve problems in businesses (Henderson, Harry). It is true that a computer programmer can receive huge amounts of payment, however, a real computer programmer would choose computer programming simply because “it is fun to program.” In this impression, computer programming is one of the most favorable careers in the modern world today. However, some people do not consider computer programming as a viable and worthwhile career. Some people consider computer programming to be frustrating since the tiniest error can cause major system disorders. Computer programming is very detailed work and programmers have to be on call at any time of the day to address problems from companies. Therefore, computer systems programmers have huge loads of stress and responsibility to carry on their backs. However, even with huge amounts of stress, computer programmers feel honored and they take pride in their work. Computer programming is very detailed and difficult work that no ordinary person can do. That’s why computer programmers feel honored and it is these feelings...
I took up Computer Science and Engineering as my discipline in Bhoj Reddy Engineering College for Women affiliated to Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, one of the premier institutes in India. My undergraduate education has been a great learning and enriching process for me. It exposed me to all the core areas of Computer Science like operating systems, database management systems, networks and network security, data structures, algorithms and software engineering. These courses have given me a good foundation in the core concepts. My interest lies in Database Management, Programming Languages, Theory of Computation, and Software Engineering. I am fully acquainted with the fast growing subjects like Object Oriented Programming, Analysis and Design. On the other hand, the intensive laboratory classes exposed me to a fascinating world of experimentation. It was here that I discovered the qualities of perseverance and diligence in myself. I feel that these courses have done a lot to prepare me for my future studies and research work.
My undergraduate preparation at the Computer Science of my University has given me a very substantial knowledge of the basic areas of Computer Science. Any amount of learning in Computer Science would be incomplete without hands on experience of Programming. In a world where...
Computers and Technology have fascinated me right from my childhood and I have always had it in my mind to choose Information Technology for my engineering. As the years passed my eagerness grew and so did my thirst to attain higher education and now is the perfect time for me to ignite the spark in me. This has given me the courage to analyze the fact that I have a herculean task ahead in order to comprehend an extensive proportion of subject and enjoy it while assimilating the problems.
After my twelfth grade, the inherent ardor I held for Computer Sciencemotivated me to do a bachelors degree in Information Technology. Programming and Math, a paragon of logic and reasoning have always been my favorite subjects since childhood. I still vividly remember the time during my graduation,when I was successful in creating a simple calculator application as a class assignment.The joy I derived from creating something that is used by a lot of people to help them perform complex calculations,made me realize the power of computing in its true sense.It was also in my graduation that I developed an immense interest in programming languages such as Java, C++ an...
It was emotional and frustrating for me, at the beginning when the downloaded systems wasn’t work for me properly and removed from my computer several times until I got the right one for my system and tested and proved it and make sure everything are working for me very well as I needed. During this process,it was challenged, completely hard time and decided not to have this gave up because didn’t work. But step by step started to see progress on my setup and even completed and started communicated with python (” Hello world”) thanks, python works! But I admitted that computer programming is not teasy as we really using the computer, and we are watching movies from the computer at all. Computer programming is something that needed big understanding, and also needed a lot of effort, time, and very deep computer knowledge her. I know that tuff for me but I like it and decided to challenge programming. Surprisingly, computer programming it is not even the way we read books and watch a