Why women don't go into Computer Science

Today, I attended my first Intro to Computer Programming class. I was the only woman in a class of 18. Surprisingly, I don't think that I was the oldest in the class, as there was a gentleman who seemed at least my age, if not a bit older. The professor is a very large, very geeky, very socially inept man who studied computer programming when it was still called data processing (college in the 1970s).

The trouble started when I took my seat. I'd made an egregious error and sat directly next to a young man instead of sitting a seat away from him. (It was the closest seat I could get to.) He looked at me as if I'd just offered him a toasted tarantula, spun in his seat, and refused to look at me the entire class. Well all right then.

Then came the "social" aspect of the class. You all know how wonderful these are, right? Tell us about yourself, yadda yadda. In this case, the professor handed out neon yellow sheets of paper and asked us to write our names, addresses, and phone numbers on the top middle of the paper. Then, draw a 5" x 5" square in the center of the paper. (Older man in class, named Cleotis: "But I don't have a ruler!" Prof: "Just estimate." Cleotis: "Without a ruler, I can't estimate!" Prof: "Just give it your best shot. It's okay if it's not perfect." Cleotis: "It's not gonna' be perfect without a ruler.") Then, we were told to draw a self-portrait in the box. Half the class looked completely panicked; the other half thought this was hilarious. After the drawing portion of the class, he had us turn the paper over and answer a series of questions about ourselves. You know, thinks like what math classes have we had, what computer classes have we had, the names of any of our pets, etc. We turned the papers in (the kid next to me didn't even turn his head to look at me when he passed the papers my way), and then came the really fun part.

The professor stands in the front of the class and says, "Okay, now we're going to do the social part of things." He looks at me and says, "This is going to be easy for you. The social part is always easy for women. It's when we get to the programming that it's going to be hard because you have to focus on one small thing at a time, and women have a hard time with that. But that's okay, because you're going to have it so much easier with the social stuff, like now....But there are some very good women programmers out there, because women are so organized!"

He continues with, "Okay [he says okay a LOT], I want you to introduce yourself to your classmates, and learn all you can because then you're going to be introducing your classmates to everyone else when we're done. Okay? Now, go." At which point, the kid next to me immediately turned his back to me so that he could converse with the kid sitting next to him. (That kid is my favorite in the class. He's the only one who treated me like a person. His mannerisms make me think that he has Auspergers Syndrome, which may be why he didn't treat me any differently than anyone else.) I looked around and everyone had paired up, leaving me sitting at the desk looking utterly ridiculous. For several minutes, I just sat there. Then I pulled out my phone and started texting my husband, because, well why not, no one else was talking to me.

A few minutes later, the guy behind me tapped me on the shoulder and introduced himself to me. He's an older guy - well, older than the rest of the class - at around 25 or so, and very cute. He had just moved to town eight days ago from Panama so that he could take classes at this community college so he can transfer to UIUC. We chatted briefly (he hates the cold, he's living with a female friend at the moment, no family here with him) before I hit the death knell to the conversation: I brought up the fact that I was married. Almost as soon as I mentioned my husband, the guy bowed out of the conversation. Kid you not, I mentioned Max, and within two more words, he nodded out of the conversation and started talking to the guy next to him again. Huh. Well, alrighty then.

The introductions come next, and the prof started with the Panamanian, Christian, who proceeded to introduce the guy next to him. Around the room they go, sharing this and that about each other. One guy had gotten up at the start of the introductions part to "use the restroom" and didn't come back until the introductions. He got to introduce himself, so he said his name and that he's a full-time student. Next!

My favorite guy, the one who I think has Auspergers, was awesome! He introduced the guy next to me by telling everyone his full name (middle name, too), age, birthday, number of siblings (and genders), favorite video systems (and which one he owns), favorite video games, which systems his mother owned (Wii) and which ones he owned himself, what he's planning to go to school for, and his favorite color. One of the other guys said, "How'd you guys get an hour when we only got 10 minutes?"

The prof goes around the room and when he gets to me he says, "So, did anyone talk to you?" I said that yes, I'd met Christian, and indicated the guy behind me. The prof asked me to introduce Christian to the class, so I did, mentioning that he was from Panama, had just moved here, wasn't liking the cold - at which point the professor interrupted me mid-word to tell a story. He then passed on to the next guy. (And before anyone asks, no, I wasn't rambling. I had said exactly as much as I posted here before I was interrupted.) No one introduced me to the class.

The prof then moves on to start actually, you know, teaching the class. He starts out with a sports reference, moves on to a gaming reference, and from there jumps into some technical jargon about some scientific study about how programmers work. Finally, he commences with the teaching, which he did fairly well. I enjoyed the way he explained things, and he did a great job with entertaining questions and getting the class involved.

There are at least two guys who are obviously going to be messing with the prof throughout the class. They'd tried to sit in the back row, but the prof made them sit in the front row instead. They know quite a bit about computers, so this is obviously a pre-req for them and not something that they're going to learn anything in. That led to quite a bit of taunting of the prof, who mostly missed it because he's so socially inept that he didn't get it.

There's another guy who is absolutely adorable. It's obvious that he's an over-achiever type who just wants to get things done right, and the professor's inability to answer his very specific questions regarding how the grading is going to work was making him more and more agitated as the class went on. After class, he finally cornered the prof to get direct answers, but he left probably more frustrated than he had been. I felt so sorry for him because you can tell that he's going to be a mess until he gets those questions answered.
Most of the guys in the class are younger - 18 to 22 probably - with Cleotis (pronounced clee-OH-tis), Christian, and maybe one other guy older than that (he came in late and missed the introductions, lucky duck).

The topic is interesting, and the personalities are a trip, but if the prof keeps trying to be so "inclusive" of me in the class, I don't know how long I'll last. It was pretty clear that he was just trying to prove that he didn't mind women in his class, but in doing so came across so horribly. I really have no idea why, but I felt completely humiliated by the end of the whole "social" part of the class. I just wanted to crawl into a hole. His social ineptitude should not make me feel awful, and yet somehow, it did.

So the next time someone asks, "Why are there so few women in computer science?" you'll know the answer.

Change But Not

This February will mark 19 years that I've lived in Illinois. That's 14 years longer than I'd intended. Now, it looks as though I'll be stretching my time in this state out another year or two... or more.

My first reaction when my husband told me that he'd been offered a job was elation. Finally, I could hand the responsibility of our family's financial well-being off to him. He had completed his degree, and the onus fell to him. He set to work applying for hundreds of jobs from one side of the nation to the other. I knew that my time in the Midwest was drawing to a close. Then he said that the job he'd been offered would be here in Central Illinois. I didn't bother stemming the tears.

Several friends have asked me why I want to leave here, what's so awful about where we live? Nothing is awful about Central Illinois. My issue has nothing to do with the state, and everything to do with me.

You see, my goal in life has always been to travel, to see new things, learn about different cultures, find out who I am when I'm not with people just like me. Unfortunately, due to a series of life circumstances, that hasn't happened. The furthest that I've ever lived from my childhood home in Iowa is here, in the heart of Illinois. I have traveled - England (twice), Canada, and 30 of the 50 US states - but what I haven't done is lived elsewhere. Traveling has its place, and I certainly enjoy it tremendously, but a vacation is not the same as living somewhere. It's like taking a sip of ambrosia before someone whips it away from you. You get to  glimpse your ignorance, only to have to leave without learning how deep it goes.

For those who are happy in the safety of what they know, this must seem odd at best, and downright bizarre at worst. I don't know how to explain it other than to say that my soul yearns to know what's on the other side of the fence, the road, the city, and beyond. That lack of knowledge taunts me, a bone in the face of a starving mutt. No distraction will pull my sights from it. I see nothing but the horizon.

Knowing how I feel - and with a bit of his own wanderlust to contend with - my husband hesitated to take the job. Though the position is ideal in nearly every way, he questioned the wisdom of accepting it. Would doing so cause more harm than good? Would I - could I - accept another year or so in the confines of cornfields and soybeans? Could he? The job would mean financial security the likes of which we'd never known in our married life. It would mean stability for our four children, and us. And most importantly of all, it would offer him a leg-up for any job he wanted down the road. How could he not take it?

So, here I sit, amid the wind-scorched acres of land, wishing that I were anywhere but in this chair, in this house, in this town. Again. Nineteen years is a long time to yearn for something, and though I often wonder if I will ever leave this place, I know that we've done the right thing. For right now, this is where we belong, for better or for worse, and we'll deal with the disappointment. For now.