[jlees]

This is cool, and interesting in a couple of ways. The declarations are preliminary, meaning (I presume) that students may change their minds; according to some studies (e.g. [1]), women tend to transfer out of CS at a higher rate than men. Some anecdotal reasons behind this include a hostile atmosphere/alienation [2], sexism from students and teachers, unequal backgrounds due to pre-college factors [3] and so on (of course, there are plenty of non-gender related reasons why someone might switch majors).

The flip side is, these are upperclassmen, which I understand to mean they probably have been taking CS classes for some time already at Stanford. Most of these factors would have been encountered already if they are indeed present at all, which is cheering in its own way.

[1] http://www.academia.edu/5317313/STEM_Switching_Examining_Dep...

[2] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-business/11182833/Ho...

[3] http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-...