Volunteer for Events in May

One of my favorite parts about volunteering with WISE are the great outreach activities that we organize. They are a great way to share your love of science and engineering and are a nice break away from lectures and assignments. PLUS! The school age girls that we invite are always so much fun to interact with!

In May, CU-WISE has not one but TWO great outreach activities lined up that we are going to need a lot of help with. On Saturday May 11 we will be inviting Girl Guides and Pathfinders from the Ottawa area for our second Girl Guide Engineering Badge Day and on Friday May 17 we will be hosting the CU-WISE Amazing Race! Both events will be running from 8 am to 4 pm and will be taking place at Carleton. If you want to get involved please sign up to be a volunteer below.

What I love about being a software developer

A developer I met on twitter told me to check out this article a while ago on the benefits of being a female software engineer. I enjoyed it, but had a few varying opinions so I thought I’d first give my personal list of the things I love about being a developer, and then also some positives about being a woman in the field.

Things I Love About Being a Developer

Feeling like I have the power to build anything

We’re so bombarded with new technology all the time that I think we sometimes take for granted the magic of it. As a programmer, almost ironically, I feel like I get to live in constant awe of this magic. I’ve always been a creative person. I started writing songs and poetry in grade 2 and still do, got pretty good at drawing in middle/HS, and even thought for a while that I might try taking up woodworking in post secondary. The spirit of creation is the midnight oil that keeps programmers glued to their monitors into the wee hours. Having the ability to create programs you can use as tools just blows my mind. If you think it looks boring sitting behind a computer, just remember that’s exactly where you’d be if you were editing that music video in Final Cut Pro, or writing your famous blog that’ll be made into a TV series, or putting together parts for a song with GarageBand, but you wouldn’t be able to do any of those things on that computer without programmers! MAGIC!! :O

Seeing my creations work/do something I wanted to accomplish

Building a program is fun, but using it after or seeing people use and appreciate it is even more rewarding. If you’ve created a piece of software that works well and looks nice, just seeing the fruits of your labor on your own screen is enough to make you do a happy dance, if that is you’re nerdy/cool enough to do something like that *brushes shoulder off*

Making an algorithm that’s just that much better than the other guy’s

Now if you’re not competitive you can still enjoy programing for a lot of other reasons, and just because you don’t have the fastest most elegant solution for something does not mean you won’t be a successful programmer (not at all!), but for myself, I can get competitive sometimes . Especially when it comes to challenging projects or assignments. I’m not proud of this one but I know I’m not the only one who enjoys this. When the guys are talking about their solutions for an assignment like “Oh yeah I used a priority queue, and my algorithm does this. Runs faster than most of the other programs apparently. What’d you use?” I love when I can respond with something like. “Oh yeah that’s cool. I used one too but my recursive function cuts off early and uses a shortcut if the player isn’t being blocked, to score faster, which happens most of the time if it’s running against random players, so it ended up working in like half the time after I did that ” If you’re a good sport a little friendly competition can be fun I don’t want to make programing look harder than it is right now though, so for anyone reading this who isn’t sure if they’d be good at programing just try it and if you don’t like a language try another one. Some of the terminology used to describe it can make it look difficult but, it’s way easier than it seems, and not everyone who is good at programing likes the more challenging problems, but they’re still every bit as good of a programmer, and they end up being every bit as successful. So many opportunities are there for you if you have this special skill so I want to encourage everyone to try it. Especially more GIRLS! Still, if you’re bright and enjoy a challenge there are career paths you can take and courses you can take that can give you a lot of that Feeling kick-ass for solving a difficult problem is just a job perk worth mentioning. If you enjoy solving puzzle games and things like that, or you enjoy math or physics, you might want to check out programing, you’ll probably fall in love with it.

Salary

Computer science students, make on average anywhere from 16 to 18 bucks an hour for their first summer jobs during school, and then it can get up to 23 an hour by the time you graduate. Now this varies greatly depending on a lot of things and these are only my estimates based on what I’ve gathered from friends and acquaintances, so if you’re a student reading this, and it’s not your story, don’t worry! Even if you graduate with no work experience you still have a very marketable skill, and probably a great career ahead of you. I just had my first computer science job at the start of this school year (4th year) and now continuing into the summer my salary has gone up. I started late, I never really went after an IT job until last summer when I was coming out of third year, and I started late for the summer so I ended up giving up and waitressing, but I’m making more now than I was waitressing, I have a steady job 5 days a week, and I pinch myself because although I did enjoy my service job, getting paid more than I was hustling tables to do what I love already in my first job is a dream come true. If you give up on finding a summer job, just don’t give up on the career. It can feel daunting if people around you have jobs in the field and you’re late for the party(how I felt with my guy friends who almost all had IT jobs since 1st or 2nd year), but even working for free for a startup can be one of the most enriching experiences, and can be worth much more to you in the end than getting paid anything if you want to even try that. It’s not all about the money, but the money is there to be made. Again LADIES! There need to more ladies in my field getting in on this!

Being an expert/ respect

I have limited experience in the field, but from what I can tell there is a lot of respect in the work force amongst developers for each-other, especially if they all bring something different to the table, it’s all “Oh well you’re the expert on the databases”, or “Well I don’t know as much about that area of the product but this is what I think, what do you think?” and “Let me know how you feel about my ideas! ” or “Let me know if you have suggestions for how else we can go about this! ” Everyone values each-others input and there’s a real feeling of comradeship, teamwork, and respect. It’s great to feel like you really have something to contribute if you have special knowledge, and it’s great to be respected for what you can bring to a project at work, or for an expertise, which you’ll almost certainly end up developing over time in development, especially if there’s a certain language or type of project that really gets you passionate at the start.

Can always grow/ go new places/ go anywhere

There are so many options in a developer’s career. As an indecisive person it can make my head spin sometimes when I try to think exactly what direction I want my career to take, but as someone with a lot of interests it also makes me glad to know I can always explore new dimensions of the industry. From government jobs, to startups, to contract work, to open source, to future managerial possibilities, to starting your own business, or going to grad school. There are just a whole world of possibilities for career options in computer science/ computer engineering, and you can always learn more if you’re ever bored with where you are. There’s always more to learn and new exciting technology to explore

Entrepreneurial spirit of the industry

Since my second year at Carleton when I was exposed to a few startup companies in Ottawa I’ve thought that starting my own company was something I wanted to do eventually. I’ve seen other Carleton graduates succeed at it and after working on a 48 hour coding competition to make a game for Windows phone 7 (the Great Canadian Appathon), I know that when I’m working with friends on something we designed and came together to create, I can work tirelessly for days and it doesn’t ever feel like work. I know I’m not alone in catching the startup bug either. It’s something that comes from being a part of an industry where the product is completely digital (so no building materials or shipping or packaging costs to worry about), the industry can change so quickly that being a small and agile company has major advantages, you can be personally involved in all aspects of the creation of your product from start to finish (entrepreneurs like to have control), and the impact your service could have on society seems only limited by your imagination. I say seems because a lot of developers feel like once they build an amazing product people will just come use it, and aren’t used to the marketing/customer service side of the industry. As someone who has always been fascinated with human behavior and motivation, with a minor in psychology, who’s a big people person, I’m also passionate about how people are going to use and react to software so I love all sides of the process of getting an idea from someone’s head, on to people’s computers, and into their lives.

Things I Love About/ Advantages of Being A Woman in The Industry

You are well liked because you bring an energy that’s missing

Before I came to University to study computer science in a program with a girl guy ratio of 1 to 9 (not even: women make up 7% of my program a percentage that’s gone down since the 80′s when the percentage was closer to around 45%) I was in an arts HS with a girl guy ratio of 7 to 1, and I notice now that the guys in our school were very well liked, whereas in computer science the girls are more well liked, and I’m not just talking about crushes here, there’s just an energy that’s missing when a population is heavily dominated by one sex, the dynamic is out of balance, and people are drawn to the energy that’s missing. In HS I couldn’t wait to get to university because I wanted to have tons of guy friends, I wanted buddies to joke around with, I’d had enough of talking with girlfriends about feelings, of shopping and sleepovers, after a couple of years of comp sci, I got sick of having so many guy friends (not that I got sick of the friends I had ) and started trying to make more girlfriends outside my program to balance my life. That’s just how it is. Whether by nature or nurture, male and female friendships have a different quality to them and we need both in our life. I’m very grateful for all the wonderful friendships I’ve made in my program and in my industry

Men compete more agressively with other men they work with

If you’re a woman this means less butting heads or trying to show each-other up on teams who’s members should be co-operating, and smooth sailing in general. Generally once people get older I think they’re more mature and secure so everyone is more supportive and less competitive with each-other in general, but they’ll still compete more with each-other which makes co-operation easier for women in the field. This isn’t because they don’t think you can hold your own. They’re not going easy on you. It’s evolutionary for men and women to compete more with members of the same sex.

I love that I have an unexpected occupation

I get some surprised looks when I tell people I’m a software developer and I know what you’re saying, “Lana maybe they’d be surprised if you were a guy too!”, and yes maybe they would have, it doesn’t always have to do with gender, but it may have something to do with it considering the very low number of women in the industry. When someone says “Wow!…wow good for you!” I’d never be upset by it. They didn’t expect me to be a programmer because people use mental heuristics to try and guess my profession, mental shortcuts, which usually work well. I’m a woman and so chances are you’d be better off not guessing that I’m a programmer if you want to have the best chances of winning the guessing game, but to see someone ask me if I work at the mall, while I put my makeup on on the buss and then get to see their face as they question their assumption, is just a lot of fun for me, especially as a feminist. Never make assumptions about people Not even yourself

Compliments/ not hard to find a date

A guy friend of mine, in computer science, gave me this one: “Computer Science: the odds are good but the goods are odd” While this is pretty funny, to be blunt, you’d find just as odd goods in any of the other more gender balanced sciences, like chemistry or bio, but in comp sci you don’t have other women to compete with. Seriously though the guys in my program are some of my favorite people in the world, there are a lot more cool down to earth computer nerds out there than you’d think, and if you’re intimidated by the gender ratio, just remember, a lot of them are more afraid of you than you are of them, so extend an olive branch to one or two and you’ll have at worst a guy who stalks you but also makes you feel good about that freshman 15 you put on, or a douche who you quickly get over because all the guys around you are asking you why you’re dating his douche ass, or at best a lifelong friend, or a lifelong partner, maybe even a business partner if you’ve caught the startup bug. Either way most of the guys in my program are wonderful intelligent fun and creative people, so this is just a bonus worth mentioning.

Being able to act like a total dork and get praised for it

I’ve always been nerd at heart. You wouldn’t know it if you passed me on the street or saw me out with my girls but if you could see how I am on the inside I’d probably look like a skinny teenage boy with braces and really thick glasses, and it shows when I’m with my guy friends in computer science. I’m a music nerd, I’m a comic book nerd, I’m a psychology nerd, I’m a Youtube nerd, I’m a video-game nerd, I’m a book nerd, and a very proud computer science nerd, and I let out quite a snort sometimes when I laugh, and I snort a lot around the guys in my program. I feel like we’re all one big nerdy family. I love it! I've never laughed harder or spoke more freely, candidly, or passionately with any other group of people. These guys are my soul-mates :P Why is this under the advantages of being a woman in computer science? Why not stick it with things I love in general? Because I think it’s really good for me, as a woman, to be around guys who couldn't care less if I was wearing any makeup, around guys who wouldn't notice the difference if you died your hair red, blonde, lost 20 pounds, or gained 20, guys who don’t care about social graces or which other crowd you’re friends with, around guys who make you feel like you can be yourself, even if that means you feel like swearing like a sailor, not doing your hair that day, and snorting really REALLY loud when you laugh just cuz you feel like acting a little crazy, because I think us girls need to learn to love ourselves more unconditionally, and worry less about our image/appearance and more about what we can do with our lives, and what we can experience. These guys want to hear if I’m working on a software project or learning to play ukulele, because that’s cool and fun, they don’t care if I buy new clothes or get new makeup, or start wearing my hair differently, they’ll just compliment you whether you have makeup on or not. They’re chicken soup for the female soul. :)

My ambitions are not just for myself. I want to succeed for other women/girls

I think I’m naturally a very ambitious person, not in a power hungry or status hungry sort of way, just in that everything I’ve wanted to do in my life I’ve wanted to be the best at it, I’ve wanted to do something great with it, even if no one but my family is going to see it, I want it to have an impact. I want whatever I do to create something awesome that makes a difference and moves people. I also have a deeply rooted sense of fairness and justice and if I see something that runs up against that, it upsets me a great deal. I won’t ever become upset to the point where I let it invade my life in a negative way, and I’m a very balanced and grounded person, but as Martin Luther King said “True peace is not merely the absence of tension, it is the presence of justice.” I think that there are a lot of leftover outdated attitudes in our society from the women’s movement and before it, that go unnoticed and effect women and men for the worse. When men and women are offered a salary, men will reject it and ask for more 8 times more often than women. In fields like nursing that are dominated by women people are underpaid, and men avoid them, in fields like computer science and engineering we’re paid more and women avoid them, and I know that these things won’t just naturally balance out without effort, because when you act unconsciously in life as an individual, imbalances don’t just go away, they’re self perpetuating, and it’s the same thing with society as a whole.

Salary is a big deal. How much we think we can/should make is about how much we think we’re worth to the world, and it’s a sensitive topic, which is why people don’t like to talk about it, but I’m someone who craves real conversations with strangers, I want to talk about things like this because it matters so much, which is why I’m writing so much in this post .

If you’re a woman and you make a conscious effort to keep yourself aware that the guy next to you is asking for a higher salary 8 times as often, and that you’re worth just as much, and you make a conscious effort to do the same thing, which is not easy at all for most women, then the difference in money you’ll have made over your lifetime by the time you retire is in the millions, but even better than that if you can think about the difference it would make if you end up being the first woman to start a tech company that makes such a significant impact on the industry that your face is on the cover of Time and all the IT and business magazines and that gives little girls something to stick on their walls instead of the fashion models on all the covers of all the magazines they’re used to seeing women on, that’s not just an ambitious goal that’s revolutionary, that’s an Obama moment just waiting to happen that some woman is going to get to have. Don’t you want to be the woman to make that moment possible? You can be. If you pursue a career in computer science or engineering haha obvious plug right there, but that’s why I’m so passionate about my industry, all the opportunity and all the frontiers out there just waiting for whoever is brave enough to take them.

Hope that you enjoyed the reasons I love software development, and I also hope that you’re a young girl and this got you to thinking about where you want your post secondary education to take you, and maybe that you’ll pick computer science or engineering as a career :)

If I’ve left an advantage out or if you disagree with anything I’ve said let me know I always love a good discussion about these things

Shalom!

World's greatest paper rollercoaster

Who needs expensive plastic toys when you can build marble rollercoasters out of paper? This coaster is over 12' high!



Here's a picture of a shorter one:

and the video to go with it:


For more pictures and videos of various paper coasters, check out his website, PaperRollerCoasters.com. It looks like he does a lot of school visits -- maybe this would be a great outreach activity!

The Celebration of Women in Science and Engineering is Just Around the Corner!

Last year's Celebration was pretty awesome, but this year is going to be something special.  You see, we've made a big effort to ensure our talks are fun and exciting no matter what your background is.

So, for example, if you're in biology, you'll understand what the computer scientists and engineers are talking about.  Even if you aren't in science or engineering at all, you will enjoy what we have to offer!

Even better, we've invited a group of high school girls to be in our audience this year.  We've already got more than 25 signed up.  We're hoping that we can ignite a love of science and engineering in these students, and show them the awesome choice that Carleton is for post-secondary education.

The full schedule with talk titles and descriptions is now posted online, so go check it out and we'll see you on April 6!

What's it All About?

The link above describes it like this:

The Carleton Celebration of Women in Science and Engineering is a showcase of graduate students, faculty, and alumni of Carleton University. The number of women who enrol in many science and engineering programs is quite low, so the amazing things they do can easily go unnoticed. This day puts them in the spotlight.

The goal of this event is two-fold. First, we aim to provide networking opportunities for all female science and engineering students. Second, we would like to see members of the greater Carleton community and the general public attend these talks and learn about some of the great things happening in science and engineering. We want the world to know that there really are successful women in these fields!

This year's Celebration will showcase research and projects done by female students and faculty from Carleton in a way that is accessible to the general public, including high school students.

Everyone is invited!

Scientific Tuesdays on Wednesday: Colourful Milk

For this week's Wednesday fun video, we've got a video from Household Hacker's Scientific Tuesday series. It's a neat trick to do with milk, food colouring, and soap:

Can you accomplish more with a female instructor?

IBM Extreme Blue Case Study Competition-4264
by Terriko.

I don't get what the bit about Obama and Desperate Housewives at the start of this article from Slate entitled "Pscyh-out sexism" is trying to say, but the research summarized later sounds interesting. Here's a quote about the first study:

The psychologists asked female students studying biology, chemistry, and engineering to take a very tough math test. All the students were greeted by a senior math major who wore a T-shirt displaying Einstein's E=mc² equation. For some volunteers, the math major was male. For others, the math major was female. This tiny tweak made a difference: Women attempted more questions on the tough math test when they were greeted by a female math major rather than a male math major. On psychological tests that measured their unconscious attitudes toward math, the female students showed a stronger self-identification with math when the math major who had greeted them was female. When they were greeted by the male math major, women had significantly higher negative attitudes toward math.

In the next study, they found that university-level women asked fewer questions in class and in office hours after a term with a male prof than they did after a term with a female one. And in the final study, they found that women had more confidence with a female teacher... even if tests showed that they were outperforming their male colleagues.

The latter two studies could be for reasons other than the gender of the teacher: previous studies have shown that although fewer women reach the level of prof, those who do tend to be exceptional so it might be their innate talents and not as much their gender that allows them to reach their students better. But still, it's an interesting selection of research, and really speaks to why it's so valuable for the women of WISE to teach others!

So next time you wonder if it's worth coming out to an outreach event, remember that your smiling face may be just what another young woman needs to get her to try that little bit harder!

Fun classroom trick

I'm not sure I believe the title which claims this video to be the Best Math Prank Ever, but it is definitely a memorable lecture! You may not know it, but some of our profs here also pull some neat stunts. I fondly remember a magic show put on by a professor of... I think it was economics? If only I could remember who it was and convince him to put videos online too!

Canada + boiling water = instant fog

Now that we're getting down to -20C in Ottawa, it's time for a Wednesday fun science experiment! It had never occurred to me to try throwing boiling water outside in the middle of winter, but darned if it isn't a neat effect.

Science party tricks!

Today's Wednesday fun is all about the party tricks. Prof Richard Wiseman from the University of Hertfordshire (UK) made this fun video of science tricks you can do at parties. I love how these are all very quick to do once they're set up, and I'll bet they'd make great outreach activities if you're stuck for a fun demo to do!



You might want to check out Prof Wiseman's blog too: http://richardwiseman.wordpress.com

Santa's Dirty Socks

CS Unplugged is a series of activities designed to teach computer science without a computer.  I've used them many times for outreach activities and even in an undergraduate course I taught.  The creators have been uploading some great videos relating to computer science topics, and I wanted to share this one:

This original story introduces the idea of a divide-and-conquer algorithm using a narrated picture-book verse about the serious problem of finding a pair of dirty socks that have been accidentally wrapped with a child's present. The idea is that this can be played or read to students, and then can be used as the basis for a follow-up discussion. A set of discussion starter questions is available (http://csunplugged.org/divideAndConquer­) to encourage students to engage in computational thinking and think about algorithm analysis in the story 1024 presents are searched in 10 steps, and students can be asked to extend this to other cases, and generally think about the implications of having an algorithm with logarithmic complexity.

 Check out all the videos.

Go ENG Girl

This past weekend I had a chance to share my passion for engineering when Go ENG Girl took place at Carleton University on Saturday October 16th. Go ENG Girl is hosted every year at universities across Ontario as an opportunity for girls in Grades 7-10 to learn more about the field of engineering.
The day started off with a welcome and keynote speakers. Students and their parents heard from women studying and practicing engineering and learned more about what it meant to be an engineer. The girls were introduced to the many types of engineering and the opportunities that could arise within the different fields.

While parents heard from a panel of speakers about such things as entrance requirements, academic support, campus life, and career expectations, the students headed off to participate in a hands-on activity.

The grade 7-8 students were given a small design project involving snap circuits. They were asked to create a morse code generator and were then given the freedom to create their own circuits. One group created a lie detector test in which the ‘liar’ would answer a question and then would be required to place their index finger and thumb at a given location on the circuit, which would then detect if they were in fact telling the truth. The detector would hum if they were telling the truth and would make a loud high pitched sound and flash a light if a lie was being told. The circuit detected a ‘lie’ if there was enough moisture on the finger or thumb from nerves and sweat. I have included a picture of this particular circuit. The grade 9-10 students had a chance to use their design solution skills as they were asked to create a catapult which would launch a small mass the greatest distance while having a cost effective design with minimal materials. The projects were presented to the parents and it was clear that there were some future engineers among us!

Students and their parents were given a pizza lunch while being able to browse engineering exhibits and speak with current students. Lunch was followed by an engineering lab tour where some of Carleton’s engineering and research and project labs could be seen.

Go ENG Girl was measured a success when the girls whose parents had ‘forced them to come’ had declared that they would be returning next year and had become interested and excited about engineering. It was very rewarding to volunteer at an event where I could help answer student’s questions and be a representative for my field of study.

I strongly encourage prospective students to seek out opportunities to learn more about their educational interests – it is never too early to start! I also encourage current students to find ways in which to become involved in sharing their experiences and passions – it is never too late to start!

Dot Diva: The Webisode

This Wednesday fun is actually something connected to CUWISE: We met the fine folk working on Dot Diva at GHC09 and got to hear about some of their plans to make computing seem like a cool career for girls. While most of us seem to focus on fun outreach science programs, they took things in a different direction: seeing as crime shows like CSI have increased the public interest in careers in forensics, they thought perhaps TV would be the best way to make younger girls realise that computer science is actually pretty cool.

They've released the first episode of Dot Diva:

KATE, a sarcastic fan of alt- and indie-rock. ALI, a lover of kittens, chick flicks, and the mall. Two girls with NOTHING in common... except for being ace programmers at a seriously-crazy video game company.

As they work to launch Rocklette's first-ever game, these two Dot Divas have to outwit their smarmy boss, Kate's doofus boyfriend, and the spy within their midst.

I wasn't too sure about the first episode initially, since it seemed like they were throwing a lot of the stereotypes in there, but I think they dealt with them ok for a first look, and I expect we'll be seeing more nuanced stuff as the characters develop. I found myself caught up in their story despite my initial feelings of awkwardness. One thing I really loved was how different the two women main characters are, while still both being programmers. What do you think?

GHC10: NCWIT at Grace Hopper: Recruiting and Retaining Women

From the Communications of ACM blog:

Research scientists Lecia Barker and Joanne Cohoon from the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) gave an excellent talk on recruiting and retaining women in computer science at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. I almost didn’t attend because I’ve been immersed in these topics through my involvement with Carleton University’s Women in Science and Engineering group (known here as CU-WISE), but I found that I still learned a lot. I highly recommend taking a look at their website after reading my summary of the talk.

Read the rest of my post here.

Greenbank Middle School Science Fair

In the middle of December I was lucky enough to participate in a Greenbank Middle School Science fair in a capacity of a judge. I volunteered for it through the Let’s Talk Science Program. I had never heard about this program until someone from WISE told me about it this year. It seemed like a good idea to volunteer for the program in principle, but after the orientation session I wasn’t even sure it was for me. But as the Fall term was drawing closer and closer to the end I was getting a nagging feeling that I was not fulfilling the obligations I had taken on. So when a Science Fair Judging opportunity came up I felt I had to take it. Plus as I did not grow up in Canada I missed out on the science fair experience and here was my opportunity to be involved in one. I guess you could say I was curious.

I was so pleasantly surprised with the science fair! There were so many students who were genuinely interested in their projects and went well above and beyond any of my expectations for grade 7 and 8 students! The top 2 winners completely blew me out of the water! The first place winner built a fist-sized robot that ran around and changed direction when it detected obstacles. And it was such a simple and elegant design! The second place went to a magnetic levitation train model. Given the statistics you might not expect it, but both of these projects were made by girls! Their enthusiasm and technical knowledge where truly impressive. It wasn’t hard to tell that they designed and built their projects on their own. The most inspiring part was that despite the world telling them that engineering is a male dominated field (with all the implications thereof) they were so comfortable in their own skin! They truly belong in engineering and I hope they will find their way there.

Another project that left an impression came from the field of Social Science. The students were hypothesizing the superiority of female visual memory vs that of the males in their age group to try to explain the general trend of higher grades achieved by the girls. You can tell the students are genuinely enthusiastic about their topic when they design their own props/testing apparatus and procedure. It was impressive to see how well they followed the scientific method and their ability keep an open mind! They were not afraid to admit that their hypothesis was wrong according to their collected data and they were even quite excited about it! I think they are good candidates for the next generation of mythbusters!

All-in-all I was inspired and humbled by such passionate, capable young people. The future is in good hands! This Science Fair helped me rediscover the excitement for the Let’s Talk Science program and reminded me of an important lesson: to take as many opportunities as you can when they come your way. You never know what exciting new discoveries and experiences they will lead to!

Line Game at Design Tomorrow's World

I just got back from Design Tomorrow's World. The event is very engineering focused, so being a computer scientist, I wanted to give them a bit of an idea of what CS is all about. I was invited to do an ice-breaker activity for ten minutes.

Normally, in these situations, I would use CS Unplugged activities. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough time to plan how to do these in only ten minutes, so I thought back to what I learned at an excellent outreach session at Grace Hopper 2008.

I ended up doing an easy little ice breaker called "the line game" some of you might be able to use one day. Basically, you have the group arrange themselves in a line based on how well they agree with a particular statement. This forces them to move around, and to talk to the others so they find the right spot (you can probably even bring in some sorting theory into it). I used three statements that lead into a bit about what computer science is all about:

1. "I like playing video games." For those who really loved them, I talked about my school's computer science games stream. For the others, I explained that not everyone in CS is into games (basically trying to show that it's not a bunch of male, nerdy hard-core gamers).
   
2. "I like math." I explained how algorithms are like mathematical thinking, but that you can focus more on design of interfaces and people etc if you want to.
3. "I have programmed or would like to try it." Everyone has to learn to program in computer science, I said that it's worth giving a try since they might like it (then I plugged my upcoming mini-course they could sign up for - Computer Science and Games: Just For Girls!).

The activity seemed to hit the spot, as I had some educators get my contact info afterwards so I could come tell their gifted students more about computer science. I think the girls also appreciated getting up and moving. ;)

Marking the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women

TRIGGER WARNING: this post discusses actual violence against women, specifically the story of the École Polytechnique Massacre. There's little graphic detail here, but several of the links in this post contain fairly disturbing information.

In Canada, December 6th is the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women. The day was chosen as a memorial to those killed in the École Polytechnique Massacre, which happened on December 6, 1989. On that day, a lone gunman walked into the school and killed 14 people, injuring more, before turning the gun on himself. He claimed that feminists had ruined his life and that the young women engineers he targeted must be feminists because of their non-traditional career choice.

WISE et al with roses
by Terriko.

Members of CU-WISE, GSA, IEEE WIE, Womyn's Center, Foot Patrol, and MEN were out in the unicentre on Dec 3rd to raise awareness of the issues, and to raise money for a pair of women's shelters in the area which burned down. At 1pm, we held a candlelight ceremony in the unicentre:

Candlelight vigil on campus
by Terriko.

After the ceremony, we showed the new film, Polytechnique. I made the mistake of staying to watch part of it. Not that it is a poorly done film, but I found it quite deeply disturbing. Mark Lepine's suicide note actually sounds too much like the death threats I, and many other women involved in the open source community, have received from another deranged individual (trigger warning: the link is to a post which discusses some of the vile stuff he says). And after watching part of the film, I then had to walk through Carleton's halls, which share some of the same institutional feel to the hallways of École Polytechnique. I will caution that this film can be highly disturbing, and note that I will likely never watch the rest of it.

However, despite my misgivings with the film, and the unpleasant feelings that come with marking the date of the Montréal Massacre, I think it was a great opportunity to talk to some of our wider university community about the history and the issues.

Dot Diva: New Program to Improve Computing's Image to Girls

Some CU-WISE members had the opportunity to meet one of the women from the Dot Diva initiative while at Grace Hopper this year in Tucson. We met up for dinner the night before the conference kicked off and had a good discussion about the image of computing as young women see it. We all believed that changing this image would make a significant impact to the number of women considering computer science as a career. We need the CS equivalent to the forensic scientists in CSI!

From ACM CareerNews for Tuesday, November 3, 2009.

Dot Diva: New Program to Improve Computing's Image to Girls
ACM Press Room, October 2009

Dot Diva, formerly known as New Image for Computing, is an initiative of ACM and the WGBH Educational Foundation to improve the image of computer science among college-bound high school girls. The Dot Diva program is inviting participation of students, faculty and interested others via recruiting, nominations and an active presence on Facebook and Twitter. Ignite Talks, a new component of the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC), recently included a presentation on Dot Diva to raise awareness of efforts aimed at improving the public perception of computing among women.

Through a national research survey, effective messages were identified and the next phase of research tested different branding concepts with girls, each based on different graphic treatments and variations of the messaging. Dot Diva emerged as the concept with the most powerful appeal. The overall messaging of the program is that “Dot Divas” are the new face of computing. They believe in the potential of computing to redesign the future and build a better world. They're young women with the power and passion to make a difference. The Dot Diva website recently highlighted the following announcements: registration for the She’s Geeky event in Washington, DC; nominations for 2010 Microsoft Research Faculty Fellows; and the launch of a new campus forum for women interested in math and science at the University of Richmond.

Click Here to View Full Article

Why DON'T we teach computer science earlier?

As Gail mentioned, we got to chat with the girls@vv girls this morning, and they had some really interesting stuff to say about why girls aren't interested. Here's a teaser from my post:

So it got me thinking, why don't we start earlier? I taught my sister how to program when she was in elementary school. One of my friends always asserts that I shouldn't generalize based on my sister and her friends, who are incredibly smart and exceptional people, but honestly programming isn't that difficult. My brother and I learned at 13 from a book for kids. So why don't the schools teach it?

You can read the rest on my personal blog.

Teach Me Computer Science Earlier

Today, Terri and I had some fun with the Girls@VV camp held here at Carleton. Here's a teaser:

I borrowed some material from my games mini-course for girls and put together a few slides about what computer science is and how women fit in. We had a discussion on why girls don't get into it, why that's a bad thing, and what would help. Then we did the finite state machine activity from CS Unplugged. Terri from CU-WISE also came out to help. What a blast we had!

As was the case for my mini-course, these girls had amazing insight into the reasons girls aren't very interested. The title of this post represents a major theme: they want to learn about what computer science really is early on in their school lives!

Keep reading to find out more about what these girls suggested!

Her Code: Engendering Change in Silicon Valley

Saw this video via a friend on Facebook.

Video featured on vator.tv: http://vator.tv/n/953
Some of the most noteworthy and inspirational women in Silicon Valley sat down with Orange Labs' Pascale Diaine to discuss their journey and successes. This short video serves as a supplement to our more extensive research report of the same name. Short version of the report here: http://icanhaz.com/hercode-report