[jerf]

Think about how many students were in your freshman level courses. Now think about how many students are in your senior level courses. Add a fudge factor for the larger dispersion in senior level courses if you like, but don't forget seniors are also taking more of the courses per semester as well.

The size difference is basically the number of people who dropped out. A few may have dropped college altogether but many have migrated to another major, because they too doubted they were in the right major until they felt they had to take action. (Or in some cases had it forced on them by failing grades.) This is not a unique experience.

Presumably this is posted here because of the gender issue raised in the post, but given how non-unique this experience is I don't see that the gender angle adds anything. Scratch a few sentences out and any number of juniors could post this. This is not "woman doubt", it's just doubt, and the doubt does not admit of "woman solutions", it's just the same "finish the degree" solution everyone else has. I take the time to say this because I actually think adding the gender idea into this is a little cognitively dangerous; incorrect identification of the problem leads to incorrect identification of the solutions. (As every engineer comes to learn instinctively after a few years under their belt.) Those who are certain they are in the right major are the unusual ones, regardless of gender and from what I saw in college, pretty much regardless of major.

[tarmstrong]

I see two problems here: one, Carolyn is calling this a gender issue and not doing a good job of explaining why it is; and two, any time 'gender' is mentioned on Hacker News, twenty people defensively write comments dismissing the gender issue.

This might be more of a gender issue than we realize. CS is just plain unwelcoming, no matter who you are, but there are fewer women in CS. We are turning women away somehow, and it's probably in ways more subtle than we realize.

Any time someone complains about CS being unpleasant, we should take a hard look and wonder if it's more unpleasant to women for that reason. There's no point in trying to end or simplify the gender conversation, even if we were brought into it sloppily.

[grammaton]

> CS is just plain unwelcoming, no matter who you are

I think this is the problem we need to address first. Even after working in the industry for years, I'm still constantly struck by how contentious and irritable this industry is.

[araneae]

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2193505

This research concluded that women were not in STEM careers because of this "work" culture, choosing instead other career paths with a better work/life balance,

[billswift]

>The size difference is basically the number of people who dropped out.

Not hardly. There are a lot of people in other disciplines that take lower level computer science courses. Quite possibly more than are enrolled in comp sci itself.

[jerf]

My school separated comp sci major and non-major tracks. Very few were in the intro comp sci classes who were not intending to be majors for me. YMMV. At any rate the point is there's a very high dropout rate in computer science. Many more switch out than switch in.