‘I believed I didn't have the right kind of brain for science’
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
Not until I went to university, to study computer science, of all things. I was good at language, so I treated programming as a language problem. I learned well enough to make a career for myself as a programmer. I guess that doesn't say much, though, there's many bad programmers out there who make tons of money.
After university, I did a masters in Data Science. Why I get myself in those situations, I'll never know, but I studied Data Science. By then I knew how to program so I tackled all the maths problems as programming problems. When I didn't get something, I coded it. So I coded a bunch of linear and logistic regressions, and perceptrons and recurrent neural nets and the like, 'till I grokked them right.
So now I'm studying for a PhD in machine learning, in one of the best universities in the world. Not bad for a kid who always got the worse grades at maths, at school, eh?
So what I learned is this:
a) play to your strengths, not your weaknesses.
b) Dont' believe when people say you haven't got what it takes. They only know one way to do things. You do you.
Oh and- you know what? Turns out I'm not that bad at maths after all. Certainly not the discrete maths used in computer science. Not even the continuous maths used in data science and machine learning. I get by.
Just today I was reading this blog post from someone who loved math, went into programming, and claims that programming isn't math, it's language, and that the image comes from early programmers being mathematicians and the industry hasn't moved on from that image yet:
http://www.sarahmei.com/blog/2014/07/15/programming-is-not-m...
People with a math background did fine, of course, but people with a heavy language background often did better. I saw this curious effect again when I started working with high schoolers, with a similar curriculum. Bilingual kids often took to programming more easily than monolingual kids.
(Has that been discussed or investigated?)
At school I knew a guy who was good at maths, obsessed with computers (as in often knowing more than the teachers) but was rejected from the computing course (until his parents complained) because he wasn't doing well in English.
Personally, I believe they were getting confused with English as it was taught (mainly literary appreciation) and Language/Linguistics (as in the grammar/semantics and logic) which wasn't actually taught in (my) high school.
Maybe. To play devil's advocate, there are times one should consider that advice. Someone trying to break into performing arts or professional sports may benefit from getting some frank, realistic advice, especially if they don't have the talent or aptitude for the work.
I would also argue there is already too much of the "one should always believe in oneself" pushed by culture - a core message of pretty much every kids TV show since at least the 80s. A more relatable example would be a person investing their life savings in a terrible idea but everyone around them telling them "it's great" and "they should keep going" so as to not hurt their feelings.
I decided to create a short survey to try to collect some data: https://delibes.typeform.com/to/Uix5hM
It's probably not very scientific! Still, if anyone fills it in then I'll share the results.
These moments stay with you and they impede you at moments when you need to be free. They push you away from being the best version of you that you can be.
If we find more systematic ways in which people are getting knocked down, we should probably work on those, too.
"Toxic masculinity" says hi. It's definitely a two-way street!
They are very poor words if the intention is to communicate and find agreement on each topic.
Boys were considered inherently mischievous, prone to cheating or making shortcuts, and always up to no good, while girls were considered rule-abiding, smart and hard-working.
Also, girls are more social and better at relationships, but also cant have by gender good relationship among them as they are destined to be basically bitches.
Boys have totally better relationships among them, but they of course just cant be without physically bullying each other which somehow does not suggest that something is wrong with relationships.
Things just aren't that simple, and there is tendency of only highlighting these 'microaggressions' suffered by young girls. I don't dismiss that it happens, but growing up sucks for everybody and these indignities are suffered by everyone. And it doesn't end with school, when I started working I went out to some trade-shows as a technical resources with a young (under-30) sales guy. We got no respect from the 50+ year old gray beards in our industry. As in, we, and especially him, got overtly disrespected because of our inexperience and youth. And when you're young, you always feel like you're behind (because you are), and you're desperately trying to push forward and gain recognition, respect and acceptance and you really feel the small daily indignities, from the meeting you weren't invited to, to project you aren't on, to your ideas being ignored (not even dismissed, just ignored), to simply not getting the credibility or respect or recognition you feel you deserve.
Personally I knew plenty of boys that were not fuckups. I know also boys who are fuckups or went through periods where they as kids were troubles, but I know also plenty of perfectly fine boys.
Of course each of us has to deal with a plethora of cultural influences and pressures, but in this case you're just asserting things and maybe gaslighting a little. Someone shared an anecdote that counteracts your assertion and you go and post hoc fit your conclusion by claiming there are in fact other secret stereotypes that must be there as well. Maybe they aren't there.
>Personally I knew plenty of boys that were not fuckups.
So do I.
In my case, however, all the fuckups I know are boys. All of them. I don't know what that anecdote says, but it says something.
Me posting first time: these stereotypes coexist.
You: You are opposing him and gasslighting. Also, he contradicted you.
Me now: wtf. Also, he could not contradict my assertion, because I joined only after him and made no assertion before.
What do you think girls think and say of boys? This is just stupid (and incorrect) victimism, directed at a gender, when the other one acts the same.
Someone using that argument is either 1) completely unaware of the experiences of the other gender or 2) being dishonest.
There's definitely still a strong 'boyish' culture where boys can say almost anything they like and it's OK, but girls (for whatever reason) won't. It's not about who's better - it's about what we let people get away with.
Also it's not about thinking. Thinking is the ultimate change you want, but we can't see and know what people around us think, but we can still try to enact standards of reasonable, gentle (non-violent if you will) communication.
I have very rarely encountered any hostility towards women in professional environment though.
I you hear that a lot in your environemnt - maybe its time to speak up against it and/or change it for something better.
School was much more set up for girls and they were more successful on average.
I don't remember boys saying girls are dumb or the reverse. The stereotype was more about girls being obedient and tidy and organized and serious while boys are messy, forgetful, chaotic and mischievous.
Edit: this last point also makes it weird for me when people equate male with order and female with chaos. I guess the stereotype may have reversed since then? Or the adult stereotype is the reverse of the child stereotype?
In fact, for most of my educational life the "top student of the class" has been female, even through engineering and maths.
Am I some kind of odd outlier? is the experience on other countries different? I'm genouinly curious.
Edit: It can also become weirdly specific; participation in computer science and physics remain quite low here (Ireland), say, but I believe most chemistry undergrads are now women.
Engineering and physics have similar ratios around 10% to 20%, while maths is way higher around 50/50 (the rates for the classes I was taking were actually higher, but that's another story). Chemistry here also is mostly women.
The only hypothesis that fits my (admittedly anecdotal) experience, is that there's quite a difference in the interests of men and women, and that the country differences in enrollment are more a symptom of how the curricula are structured.
For example, Spain does not have CS degrees structured like in the anglosphere, so depending the subfield you intend to work on, you should go to engineering instead. Most of the women I met at engineering would have chosen a CS degree over engineering if there was one. I have seen stark differences too in physics, were the majority of women there wanted to pursue pure theoretical physics with pretty much none of them showing interest in applied physics.
[0]https://www-forbes-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.forbes.com...
Perhaps those fields are perceived as not social, introverted, not warm or inviting; but I feel it would probably be a bad idea to market them as such and force a lot of young women into engineering and CS out of some misguided principle rather than their own future happiness.
Of course there are certain men that make claims about women's ability to do math, but in my experience those are often men that clearly don't possess that ability themselves... Their opinion might be mostly detrimental to their own offspring rather than to society as a whole. Those tend not to be people whose boys attend university either.
Those who survived this filter tend to be less of the tech fan boy culture.
Of course being a girl had a special status, there's just no way around that when they are below 10%. There were many cases when a class had only 1 or 2 girls, or I remember when the game design class had their first ever female student, whom I knew. She didn't recall any inappropriate things said to her. But you have to have a really strong interest in the topic to accept being the only girl in so many situations and groups. Just "going with the flow" won't carry you there.
This whole thing must have some deeper roots than what it's being reduced to today, because the effect comes up in many countries even before US influence became this strong. In fact in the former Eastern Bloc countries there was a lot of encouragement for women getting educated and getting more traditionally male jobs.
Teens' dreams and ideas often get shot down by peers, parents and even teachers. I'm not defending bad behaviour; I just think that pointing at a few loudmouthed boys and claiming that there's the reason for the gap is pretty disingenuous. Certainly the majority of women I know would not give a lack of intelligence as the reason they didn't go to study CS.
> I agree with you until you bring up gender. Girls also talk about how boys are idiots. Women's remarks can also bring down men or uplift them
One is not like the other. Teenage female peer dynamics are heavily dominated by corumination and is directed heavily inwards. When girls bully other girls, they do it indirectly. It is more psychologically directed and intensely focused on gossip and disguised status seeking behavior. It is rarely directly confrontational, and I have rarely - if ever - heard girls talk about men's compentence in some general regard that way.
It's more like, "that guys such an idiot. He said <> and <> to me. Can you believe that?"
Teenage boys on the other hand are manifestly different. I am not an expert on male teenage behavior, but judging from the fact that the vast majority of teens sending epithets to other people online or on social media are overwhelmingly likely to be teenaged boys, I would suggest that the male pattern is aggressive and an overt dominance game.
Women don't do well in that environment. Boys often do and say things that are bewildering for anyone socialized as female to interact with.
> It's just that (especially young) women seem more susceptible to social pressure and the need to fit in, especially with other women.
Yes, female social dynamics are heavily about inclusion and exclusion. A welcoming and safe environment matters a lot more to women than it does to men.
> I just think that pointing at a few loudmouthed boys and claiming that there's the reason for the gap is pretty disingenuous
I have not made that claim.
I am just talking about my experience. Your mileage may vary.
You're basically saying that males are more resilient and assertive - this doesn't mean that females can't "shoot down" boys, however indirectly. When you're constantly hearing about "toxic masculinity" being the problem and all males are being equated to toxic, entitled narcissists who might turn "creepy" on you at any moment, are you sure that this isn't a drag to the average guy? Guys care about being included socially, too. They can deal with overt hostility if they have to, but let's not pretend that they'll be happy about it.
In middle-school and high-school I have never heard talk about girls being less competent than boys. You couldn't. Girls did better at school. Girls were Lisa Simpson, and boys were Bart Simpson. If there was a stereotype, that's what it was. If you went to a remedial class at my school(s), it would have been 3/4 boys. The vast majority of suspensions were given to boys.
Maybe the schools I went to were the exception, but no way could this be a singular experience.
>Women don't do well in that environment. Boys often do and say things that are bewildering for anyone socialized as female to interact with.
I feel you're making generalizations that don't reflect reality.
>A welcoming and safe environment matters a lot more to women than it does to men.
It matters to everyone. Who doesn't want a workplace that is welcoming and safe?
If you want some hard data to back this up, take a look at the stats about male/female university attendance in the UK. You'll see it's becoming ever more weighted towards women. I cannot browse the web or social media without being bombarded with pro-female propaganda. And yet it's women that are being discriminated against?!
Bonkers.
Not really the point I was SUPPOSED to get from this article though. I think I was supposed to be angry at sexism for discouraging her from becoming a scientist. She reminds me of how I feel about the cooks who discouraged me from becoming a cook although it was for the best I'm still bitter they said I shouldn't be one.
Wat? How'd she get into Harvard then? Legacy admission?
These are just undergrads - students come from a variety of educational backgrounds and are admitted for various reasons, of which legacy is just one possibility.
1. I expect the main reason for needing remedial writing would be English as a second language people. That is, smart people who got a good education, but that education wasn't primarily English. That doesn't really apply to math.
2. I expect standardized tests can more easily test math than writing due to the nature of solving math problems vs writing. Thus Harvard would be able to filter out people who are bad at math more easily than people who are bad at writing. Then again, maybe Harvard doesn't want to filter out people who are bad at math.
An area of academia as seen by an outsider usually makes for good storytelling but this article is a mess.
There’s this point I heard someone made about internet toxicity: “it used to be that if you didn’t have anything positive to say you’d just shit up and move on; if anything to avoid a bitter quarrel in person. On the internet, the lack of any immediate personal consequence removed this restraint, allowing the worst thoughts to pour out, and drown whatever good is said.”
Thanks, for being today’s example. Now can you please make the effort next time?
While that's an attitude I've learned to follow ("If you'd don't have anything nice to say, don't say it." as my maw would put it) I'm not sure it's actually that healthy. It shuts down all possibility of (negative) criticism for fear of causing offense, or bad feeling.
The last paragraph ("Thanks, for being today’s example. Now can you please make the effort next time?") is downright nasty.
My impression from people like you is that your kind loves writing toxic comments but thinks that covering them with a fig leaf of a supposedly 'good' cause and high moral ground somehow makes that acceptable.
Now, have a good day.
The way math and physics was taught at school vs university makes a world of difference. You leave high school without a basic understanding of science, yet you had to learn what schroedinger equation was.
Then you do not understand what kWh on you power bill means and how this is related to your lamp or keetle.
If math and physics was taught with pragmatism and not the idiotic idea that everyone needs to know everything then we would have more people interested in science.
Same for coding taught at school. You start with data structures. WTF? I do not care what a dict is before I can imagine a useful usage case.
I taught my kids to write code with a lot of handwaving first, than with a lot "you go get what this means later" and now they code. They are not big fans but it will be peanuts for then to go through coding curriculum at school. All it took were two evenings and a bit of minecraft.
Myself I haven't had a very successful academic career, and even a decade later I'm still a mediocre programmer struggling to get things done for perfectionism reasons. But I persevere and don't stop learning things. That lead to me getting a job in the industry a few years back, now carrying a comparably big responsibility in my current position.
I very much encourage women to pursue the career they consider the most thrilling. But I can also see that for women, needing more stability sooner in life may make it less appealing to chew through an academic career in a field when they're not sure if they can get good at it.
https://braindonorproject.org/
https://www.brainsupportnetwork.org/brain-donation/
https://www.alz.org/alzheimers-dementia/research_progress/br...
https://hbtrc.mclean.harvard.edu/donate/
I love how the NIH explains things: "As an organ donor, you agree to give your organs to other people to help keep them alive. As a brain donor, your brain will be used for research purposes only—it will not be given to another person." That's good to know.
Reuters did a series on it:
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-bodi...
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-body...
How many people had to ask/worry about that for them to write it? Isaac Arthur's YouTube video on identity[1] includes a comment "if someone transplanted Bob's brain into Joe's body, we would not think of it as Joe-with-Bob's-brain, but rather Bob-with-Joe's-body".
In that sense it might be impossible to give my brain to another person, it would be more like giving me their body; but what if it was only a bit of my brain? If my motor cortex could be transplanted into a stroke victim or a Parkinson's patient, or whatever; writing that down doesn't sound objectionably or identity-breaking.
[1] Science and Futurism with Isaac Arthur, in his "Existential Crisis series" playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEyiugDVQ6o&list=PLIIOUpOge0...
> what if it was only a bit of my brain? If my motor cortex could be transplanted into a stroke victim or a Parkinson's patient, or whatever; writing that down doesn't sound objectionably or identity-breaking.
I think it does break identity, but that doesn't mean it should be discarded. Your thought-experiment strongly suggests that 'identity of mind' (at least as far as it tracks the brain) is not atomic or indivisible.
The donations were for educational purposes, and we were forbidden from knowning who the donator was. All material is periodically rounded up and disposed of after a set amount of time and then buried/cremated/etc (per the donator's wishes). We took the donations out to local schools and museums for demonstrations. (It's a bit strange just riding in your car with a bunck of brains in the seat next to you, stuck in traffic, trying to get to the school/museum) The kids were very respectful and we never had an issue with anyone. For me the best moment was when one little boy mentioned that he had an encephalitis catheter implant (tube from brain into stomach to relieve chronic brain swelling). He was able to show the whole class where his tube was, using the donations as an aide. It was awesome! We had many sections of brains and some dura mater. I'm sure we inspired a fair few MDs during those sessions.
Donation is highly appreciated. Charts and diagrams are also very useful, but there is just something very real/grounding/humbling about holding a real brain in your hands. All the kids get very quiet when it happens; it's amazing to see all these emotions and realizations wash across their young faces. This pinkish wrinkly thing is the whole universe for someone else, and your whole universe is just like this thing in your hands. People and kids have different reactions to the experience, but everyone appreciates it.
If you are thinking about donating, I can attest that the donations are highly respected, very appreciated, and greatly helpful to others, at least in my little corner of the world.