Looking Deeply at a Social Problem
science, technology, engineering, math
How I Left the Hotel California
By Michael Granado
As I began to head out the doors I noticed a bulletin board that I had not recognized before… The board displayed a message of the likes of: “What are you doing this summer! Take a post-it note and write it down here!” I read over the post-it notes, and a few described traveling to places such as Paris to see the Eiffel Tower. Others talked about visiting friends and family. However, the majority of the notes were clear and displayed a universal thought: “I forgot it was summer, I am busy taking CS classes.” This silly little post-it board hit me very hard. My head began to race with reflections: What happened to my summer? What happened to my joy and my soul?
Emerging from the Dungeon
By Anonymous
Have you ever had the chance to visit the Computer Science and Engineering lab at UCSD? I’m hesitant to share my story considering I only have two years worth of experience. Once you pass the Geisel library and move forward to Warren college, you can sense the different vibes emitting from the students' eyes. There is a sense of seriousness that comes from their minds that is full of pressure and instead of a genuine smile beaming at you, it is their frustration and anger. Keep walking, you are almost there. Go down the stairs one by one. Welcome to the “dungeon” as the UCSD students give an alternative name to the CSE lab. By walking in the dungeon, you can smell the stress, anxiety, and pressure on the student's shoulders. They are either shaking their feet while sitting, pulling their hair out, or biting their nails. Behind one of the computers, you see a girl crying because she feels that she is not enough and she does not belong here.
The Gendered Stratification of STEM
By Anonymous
When looking at how women are treated in STEM fields, remember that attitudes that harm them do not randomly appear and won’t randomly disappear. Long lines of women being put down and kept in one place while simultaneously being taken lightly for being in that place shape how women can hold less social currency in whatever career they chose. Women being perceived as less than for filling traditionally feminine roles that they were “supposed” to fill in the first place do not disappear in the way modern roles are shaped. However, the disparagement carries over to women now being undervalued when they do not stay in roles that majorities of women, as well as being undervalued when they do stay in roles filled more so by women. The issue maybe does not lie in all men being sexist, but the way that some of them continue to dismiss women’s struggles as women’s issues only.
Orienting STEM Toward the Common Good
By Anonymous
Proponents of meaningful change to STEM education may say that it is impossible, that rigor will be lost, American students will fall further behind the rest of the world in STEM topics. But what these students and I are describing is not impossible. Eric (Rico) Gutstein taught a middle-school mathematics classroom in a Chicago public school serving a Latino/a community. He guided his students through a “real-world” mathematics project to investigate racism and other injustices within their community using mathematics as a lens into the complexity of the issues.
In an Effort to Code for Good
By Anonymous
As much as this has been a critique on the industry and those who benefit from it, it is also a critique on myself, as someone who has learned to navigate and succeed within it. The exploration of these ideas have prompted me to ask several questions - whether or not this is a future I want, whether or not it’s possible to make a change in a machine as large and overwhelming as Silicon Valley. I don’t have a clear answer, but one truth that I have converged on is that as long as I am able to hold onto these ideas, there is still hope that change is possible. It’s not obvious what the most effective way forward is, but there will always be people out there that will support efforts to code for good.
Looking Deeply at the Gender Gap in Computer Science
By Jesse Cox
I have asked myself many times if I belong in this major, or if things are too hard for me now as a returning student, and it’s intimidating to go and ask someone for help who has been immersed in the subject for two or three years, especially if they’re eight years younger than me. What I can imagine is that, for a lot of women, when the impostor syndrome inevitably rears its head, it becomes way more difficult to fight through when you stop and see an industry that is more than 80% men. Suddenly the question of “do I belong here?” is harder to answer, and the tragedy is that there are some who tell themselves “no,” even though there are plenty of us out here who would be yelling “yes!”
The Gender Gap in Science Slows Scientific Progress
By Anonymous
Science is a never ending stacking of building blocks, where new ideas are built upon past ones. New ideas constantly replace the old ones and redefine what we believe to be the truth. The flaw in our current system is that, we reject to acknowledge women’s discoveries, especially in the Nobel Prize awardings, thus we fail to establish a new building block and can’t move further along the path of progress. We prevent advancement in the sciences and society as a whole. We are left at a halt until a male scientist that has better connections and is better recognized to either “discover” what women have already discovered, or take over the work of women and claim it as their own, to create this building block for us. This slows down progress by a huge factor of years or even decades.