Women in STEM

Hey everyone! This week we talked about a subject that I am very passionate about: female representation in STEM fields. STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, and these fields are usually dominated by males. We also watched a video called CODE: Debugging the Gender Gap. Check out the trailer to this awesome documentary:

Here is a small infographic that illustrates those statistics:

We had a guest speaker come to our class and talk to us about the large under-representation of women in computer science as compared to information technology. It turns out that a few more women graduate from IT than from CS. We were exploring possible reasons as to why that might be, but no one really knows for sure. In light of this topic, I would like to share my own experiences with being a female and a minority in the STEM field. I started out my college career as engineering major but quickly realized it wasn't for me and switched to math. I liked math just fine, but often found myself in classrooms filled with all men, and maybe a handful of women, and hardly any hispanics (my ethnicity). I often felt out of place, and almost never felt comfortable enough to create study groups with my peers. After a while, I decided to switch to Computer Science, and it was the same old song and dance. I was one of a few women in all my classes, and again one of a few hispanics. In fact, in one of my classes of about 40 people, I was the only hispanic woman. This can often be discouraging because you don't have other people to relate to. I even had this situation in one of my CS labs where I was paired with a white male, and he never took my suggestions seriously. I would try and help with our code, and he would brush me off and ask his male friends for advice instead. I knew what I was doing, but he never believed I was capable of coding at his level. After all that, I decided to finally settle in Information Technology, and I am the happiest I have ever been with my major. I feel like I am being taken seriously, and I am still in the STEM field. I hope that one day, this feeling will change, but for now it is our reality. Here is an encouraging photo for STEM women everywhere:

Be your own Rosie and pursue your dreams even if it means going against the odds. Have a great day everyone!

Check Out These Blogs!

This week had been crazy for us U of A students because of

For that reason, we have not really discussed any new material in our ESOC 211 class. So for this week's post, I will be sharing some of my classmates' blogs!

First up is Katie McCready's blog, a junior ISTA major at the UofA. In particular, I wanted to share her third post where she talks about the different types of groups that exist: primary, secondary, planned, emergent, self-organizing, concocted, founded, circumstantial, intimacy, and task groups, as well as weak associations. She provides a really great example for each type of group by using all the different groups that exist in the popular TV show Breaking Bad. So check out her post if you want to learn more about groups!

Next I decided to look at Ryan Sutton's blog; Ryan is a sophomore E-Society major. I especially enjoyed his fourth post about the ways that the internet has empowered different groups around the world. These are the examples he talked about:

Zapatistas used the internet as a "white flag" against the Mexican Government,
calling the public's attention to the issues they were facing.

People contemplating suicide can look to Reddit for help.

Gamers can join online gaming communities to discuss new games and tactics.

Check out Ryan's blog to learn more about our class!

Finally, I looked at Amanda Delgado's blog, a freshman studying Communications and E-Society, specifically her post on February 28. She talked about the website that she and her group members created on the "Free the Nipple" movement. They presented their website in class, and I found the movement very interesting because it really shows the continuing fight for women's equality. To learn more about this movement, check out their awesome website by clicking on the photo:

I hope you all enjoy these blogs as much as I did. I won't be posting next week because it's Spring Break, so have a great next week everyone!