Boston-area girls discover a passion for coding

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Boston-area girls discover a passion for coding
« on: December 14, 2019, 12:04:09 pm »
Boston-area girls discover a passion for coding
13 December 2019, 5:20 pm

“My goal is to make computing 'normal' for girls,” says Sabina Chen from Lincoln Laboratory's Advanced Capabilities and Systems Group, who led a workshop that taught middle school girls how to program a robotic car to autonomously follow colored cones. The girls attended this enrichment class for eight consecutive Saturdays from September to November. “The class is about exposure [to computing] and interest-building,” she explains.

While Chen was introducing the 20 middle school girls to coding and computer visualization software at the Beaver Works facility in MIT's Building 31, Eyassu Shimelis of the laboratory's Advanced Concepts and Technologies Group was conducting a similar series of classes for 21 high school girls in MIT's Building 33.

The motivation behind holding the girls-only workshops is to foster a curiosity and familiarity in computing that may lead to a future increase in the number of women engaged in computer science. According to ComputerScience.org, in 2018 only 18 percent of bachelor's degrees in computer science were awarded to women; in electrical engineering, a major that often leads to professions involving computing, the percentage is even lower, at 13.7. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that women make up only about 21 percent of computer programmers, 19 percent of software developers, and 32 percent of website developers.

While multiple theories exist as to why women are underrepresented in computer-related majors and jobs, one consensus is that young women do not have confidence in their ability to master computers. “The girls came in thinking they can't do it,” Chen says, adding that she finds the course worthwhile when “their eyes sort of sparkle when they realize they can do it.”

Both workshops are based on a rigorous four-week course offered to high school seniors through the Beaver Works Summer Institute (BWSI). The summer course lets students explore the various technologies that can be used to enable an MIT-designed RACECAR (Rapid Autonomous Complex Environment Competing Ackermann steeRing) robotic vehicle to compete in fast, autonomous navigation around a mini “Grand Prix” racetrack. Although the Saturday sessions could not delve as deeply as the summer course into the software and various systems needed for the cars to tackle the obstacle-ridden Grand Prix, these weekend “crash courses” did cover the coding and computer-vison technology that allowed the girls to race their cars around a circular course set up in Building 31's high-bay space.

Chen developed the curriculum for the middle school program that was offered to both boys and girls this past summer in conjunction with the BWSI. “It is designed so students learn a specific concept, apply it, and see an immediate result,” she says. The gratification of witnessing a hands-on application of a lesson is what keeps the students interested. Her curriculum will soon be online so that schools, robotics clubs, or even interested individuals can adapt it for themselves.

Shimelis taught a similar version of a RACECAR preliminary course for Boston-area high schoolers. That course was developed in 2018 by Andrew Fishberg, who passed along his program when he moved on to tackle graduate studies at MIT. Shimelis is tweaking the course to address feedback from BWSI RACECAR students and teaching assistants, and to adapt it to his teaching style.

Both Chen and Shimelis say they did not modify their courses for the girls-only sessions that were new this fall. They agree that the girls were eager to learn and capable of handling the classwork. “Many of the girls were faster at grasping the concepts than students in my summer course,” Shimelis notes. This is high praise, because to be accepted for the BWSI program, students must complete a prerequisite RACECAR online tutorial and submit teacher recommendations and stellar school transcripts.

Chen says she was pleased by the change she saw in the girls from the beginning to the end of her workshop. “At the end, they were a lot more sure of themselves and more willing to explore their own ideas without fear.”

According to Chen and Shimelis, the success of the two workshops can, in large part, be attributed to the dedicated help of a number of people. Sertac Karaman, an MIT engineering professor who developed the original RACECAR course for undergraduate students, provided guidance to both the instructors and students. A cadre of volunteers served as teaching assistants: Kourosh Arasteh, Olivia Brown, Juliana Furgala, Saivamsi Hanumanthu, Elisa Kircheim, Tzofi Klinghoffer, Marko Kocic, Aryk Ledet, Harrison Packer, Joyce Tam, and Jing Wang from Lincoln Laboratory's staff; and Andrew Schoer, a Boston University grad student who is a participant in the Laboratory's Lincoln Scholars tuition assistance program.

The success of the workshops is captured in one student's answer to a course-evaluation question about what she gained: “I see myself coding in the future!”

Source: MIT News - CSAIL - Robotics - Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) - Robots - Artificial intelligence

Reprinted with permission of MIT News : MIT News homepage



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Re: Boston-area girls discover a passion for coding
« Reply #1 on: December 14, 2019, 03:34:26 pm »
Is this out of a desire for financial fairness? If it is, then it might be better to adjust the pay for certain jobs rather than adjust people's choices to fit the pay. It's tricky to decide correctly what's best for a population. It may be better to take a hands off approach and let people self-select. Good intentions no doubt. But I don't know about you, if elementary school teachers made lots of money and engineers didn't, and there was a societal expectation for me to be an engineer while at the same time there were programs that encouaged boys to become elementary school teachers, I'd be thinking, "You're being ridiculous, leave me alone already." Now I've got two societal pressures on my shoulders instead of one. Balance the pay, not the pressures. One lifts you up, the other pushes down on you. People on streets! dee da dee da de...

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Re: Boston-area girls discover a passion for coding
« Reply #2 on: December 15, 2019, 04:17:32 am »
We recently had a discussion on this topic in the FreeBSD forums. Supposedly, girls aren't thought to be as competent at using computers as guys. Most computer classes to be populated mostly by males and females either feel intimidated or are discouraged from going into the field. Or so they say.

This is meant to boost their confidence and pique their interest in Computer Science.

I've used FreeBSD for 14 years and have never thought men were better at computers than women, or anything else for that matter. I'm always glad to see new female FreeBSD users and do what I can to make them feel welcome.

Most of the jobs I've had were under female Supervisors and I never felt it a threat to my toxic masculinity to do what I was asked by them. I worked with a girl on a labor crew at an iron foundry scooping sand that was doing good to weigh 120lbs at 6 foot tall that outworked at least one of the guys and had all our respect.
In time, you will learn to love your Robot Overlords.

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Re: Boston-area girls discover a passion for coding
« Reply #3 on: December 15, 2019, 06:31:28 am »
The jobs women tend to choose have on average less value placed on them, and thus the pay gap. The sum of those jobs net a lower economic reward. So theoretically we could raise the value of the humanities, and lower the value of the technologies, to equalize the values of men's and women's contributions to society. This seems kinda broadly fair, maybe it would be good enough to dampen some of this conflict.

Otherwise we have men and women fighting for the "best" spots when we're not even sure what percentages would genuinely prefer them. This encouraging people to shuffle around seems like trying to fix a data problem at the expense of individuals.

I don't know how to test how much societal norms influence our natural choices but there is definite influencing going on in an attempt to correct this unknown. I really think they've got it backwards like during the great depression. It's much easier to adjust the ideas to fit the people, rather than having the people follow the data, ideas, and money, wherever it goes.

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Re: Boston-area girls discover a passion for coding
« Reply #4 on: December 15, 2019, 10:38:50 am »
Hey. Women already get a lot of support from dating us guys even when they don't try to do it - they convince bills to lower. They can get a lot of money doing just that job. A lot. They used to get to stay at home with food, shelter, and mating needs 100% satisfied. And that's great actually for us guys, sort of, because it's unfairly waged. Else I'd be dammed if they were more savage than me! There's this idea that men are strong or something. Also, yes we would like them to get into coding more yes, we may have to pay them so much more to do that lol. Maybe a turn for the better for both us.

👉 There's only an illusion that girls get low pay for big boy positions, because they are used to doing nothing to earn a living you see... So it appears they don't get payed directly at all. Nice, real smooth trick to get even more!!! Of course this effect is only slightly observed, it's not like all girls do this, though I easily see the performance issue in 80% of them :))
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Re: Boston-area girls discover a passion for coding
« Reply #5 on: December 15, 2019, 12:10:43 pm »
They used to get to stay at home with food, shelter, and mating needs 100% satisfied. And that's great actually for us guys, sort of, because it's unfairly waged.

There's only an illusion that girls get low pay for big boy positions, because they are used to doing nothing to earn a living you see...

So they were better off when they were barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen cooking supper for their hubby?

You're making the assumption their "mating needs" would be 100% satisfied. Somehow, from those answers, I kind of doubt it. :P


I have a new female Doctor that I really like and have full confidence and faith in. I don't think she should be paid any less than her male counterpart and feel lucky to have got in to see her.
In time, you will learn to love your Robot Overlords.

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Re: Boston-area girls discover a passion for coding
« Reply #6 on: December 15, 2019, 01:44:11 pm »
Here's the math:

three bees -> one wasp;
three wasps -> one hornet;
three hornets -> one snake;
three snakes -> one Woman.
-----------------------------------------
3×3×3×3 = 81 bees -> one Woman

That's a lot of bees.

I'm telling you, they are not to be joked with. We have to swipe the floor before their feet, or else... they can break our hearts.
« Last Edit: December 16, 2019, 09:07:00 am by ivan.moony »

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Re: Boston-area girls discover a passion for coding
« Reply #7 on: December 15, 2019, 05:20:44 pm »
It is pretty evil
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Re: Boston-area girls discover a passion for coding
« Reply #8 on: December 15, 2019, 05:29:54 pm »
It is pretty evil

I call it power. Luckily for us, they have a mercy on our souls. And what do we give in return? When we dignify to equalize men and women rights, we behave like we should be celebrated as heroes. Women deserve more than that.

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Re: Boston-area girls discover a passion for coding
« Reply #9 on: December 15, 2019, 08:05:07 pm »
Quote
So theoretically we could raise the value of the humanities, and lower the value of the technologies, to equalize the values of men's and women's contributions to society.

Except that you can't just arbitrarily change the values of things.  In an ideal world, the salary of a job is based on how much the general public is willing to pay for the service it provides.  If you raise the salary associated with a job beyond what the public is willing to pay, then the service doesn't sell as well, and your worker does not take home any additional money.  You can't force consumers to have a greater desire for feminine contributions.  If there's less demand for the kind of work that the average woman enjoys doing, then that's just too bad (I say this as a woman myself).

In a non-ideal world, it is possible that women's contributions are undervalued because women are more compliant and humble by nature, and therefore don't adequately promote/demand the value of their own labor.  This is something that could in theory be fixed ... though, since value is often subjective, it can be tough to figure out whether this effect is operating or the service in question really is less valuable.

Quote
There's only an illusion that girls get low pay for big boy positions, because they are used to doing nothing to earn a living you see...

A housewife does not "do nothing."  She tends to bear primary responsibility for childcare, cleaning, cooking, errands, and more ... all of which would add up to a pretty penny if you hired people to do them.

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ivan.moony

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Re: Boston-area girls discover a passion for coding
« Reply #10 on: December 15, 2019, 10:03:51 pm »
What hurts more: childbirth or getting kicked in the balls?

Now consider a kick in the balls that lasts for as long as a childbirth!  :27:

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Re: Boston-area girls discover a passion for coding
« Reply #11 on: December 15, 2019, 10:42:28 pm »
I call it power. Luckily for us, they have a mercy on our souls.

You obviously have never been married.
In time, you will learn to love your Robot Overlords.

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Re: Boston-area girls discover a passion for coding
« Reply #12 on: December 15, 2019, 11:21:04 pm »
To be fair the below may or may not be true I do want to leave room for only slightly it may be true. It's just "extra context";

I may have evolved but, physical pain just doesn't bother me anymore. However I don't go out much to get hurt and forget what physical pain even feels like sorta. Ok so, giving birth hurts... since we're talking about today/future progress, all girls get the advantage of The Pill lol. We see below that your pain is not my pain, and unfortunately once our issues are solved we pickely find new ones! Hence your idea of pain.

"A housewife does not "do nothing."  She tends to bear primary responsibility for childcare, cleaning, cooking, errands, and more ... all of which would add up to a pretty penny if you hired people to do them."
  Hmm...I cook and clean. I thought the man does the hunting also =), ok yes yes but today girls still get some stuff for free (especially younger ones). Raising children is the best best best thing in the world to do, how is this painful!!?? Nope and nope. Like small people, girls have to act tough a bit and be helped a bit. - They'll never go through the brawl exactly or more often as men. Today (especially just 30 years ago) men were/still are the ones to invent big things like algorithms/trains etc because they were that desperate. They had to do hard work. Also, most teen girls just use their iphone all day not even working on the data science field =). Except generating data hehe. We have seen though, the simple/better animal life however comes with abuse, meaning they get hurt more than us sometimes, physically. And even mentally for the New Idea Age ones.
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Re: Boston-area girls discover a passion for coding
« Reply #13 on: December 15, 2019, 11:38:12 pm »
Boy, how some people can be as deaf as a cannon.

You do what you want, I'm on my knees against Them, begging for mercy. And They deserve even more. Forget about me, friends, Their venom is already too deep, boiling in my blood. It is terminal, I'm afraid.
« Last Edit: December 16, 2019, 09:06:02 am by ivan.moony »

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Re: Boston-area girls discover a passion for coding
« Reply #14 on: December 16, 2019, 02:17:49 am »
I may have evolved but, physical pain just doesn't bother me anymore. However I don't go out much to get hurt and forget what physical pain even feels like sorta.

You obviously don't have a girlfriend because if you did she would beat your a$$ and give you a refresher course in what it felt like. :)
In time, you will learn to love your Robot Overlords.

 


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