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Comment by pbhjpbhj | Hacker News Reader

>when a young adult woman with no prior programming experience wants to take up computer science in college, no one says, "Really?"

Don't you think that a young adult deciding to take further study in a subject they have no experience in - which suggests they have no real desire towards - should at least be asked by educators/parents "Are you sure that's what you want? Really?". If I'd never baked a thing in my life and said "I want to go to catering college" I'd pretty much expect teachers to say "Really?"; why is this different?

I'm not at all suggesting you need experience in a domain to begin studying it at a higher education institute - but I'd want someone to double check that I'd at least considered [considering] the possible consequences of that route of study. I wouldn't want to stop someone following an impulse, just that I'd want to try and get them to do it with at least some thought.

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"which suggests they have no real desire towards"

How could someone have desire towards something they have never tried? I never realized programming was the most exciting thing a human can do before I had my programming 101 at university and 14 years later I'm happily employed as a software engineer and fairly competent at what I do.

" If I'd never baked a thing in my life and said "I want to go to catering college" I'd pretty much expect teachers to say "Really?"; why is this different?"

I would think the person would find out soon enough if it works for them or not. Most precious things in human life are often the result of serendipity.

What is a good occupation? I would say it is a one where the basic value adding functionality is enjoyable to a person and brings them energy. A bad occupation is one the person hates. If someone has never done something, but find out after trying that they really enjoy it, I would say the odds are that he or she might become pretty good at it since they enjoy it and they have extra mental energy to spend.

Decisions made based on intuition cannot be logically baked without lots of hard work. Sometimes it's impossible. However, evidence based, empirical proof is easy to gather. If someone does not know would they like something, they should try it.

It's far more efficient to try it first and if it does not stick, then try something new. I would claim it's quite impossible to figure out before hand if someone would like doing a thing just from applying basic logic.

I would say the agile ideas are pretty good for personal life as well. Try new things, see what happens, but do not become victim of the sunk cost fallacy - fail fast and all that.

> Don't you think that a young adult deciding to take further study in a subject they have no experience in - which suggests they have no real desire towards

Er, since when does lack of past experience indicate no present desire? Or even no past desire?

I think there should be evidence of passion, which typically manifests in a proactive approach to education and experience.

Edit. As I think of this more, I feel like we're having two different discussions in parallel. The first, how do we get more women in technology. The second, how do we get people involved in their passion. These are two distinct conversations, and the first shoe-horns a subset of the population into a career track for the sake of a misguided notion of gender equality.

Claiming someone needs to have 'passion' for a job is just a way of putting up a barrier to maintain the status quo.

There's no reason why anyone needs passion. They need technical ability and incentive. That's it. Just look at any other industry and you won't see a requirement to be passionate about the subject. You'll find thousands of quantity surveyors, radiologists, retail managers, cleaners, etc who are entirely dispassionate about what they do for a living yet they still do brilliant work because they do it for the money rather than the love. And that's perfectly alright.

>You'll find thousands of quantity surveyors, radiologists, retail managers, cleaners, etc who are entirely dispassionate about what they do for a living yet they still do brilliant work because they do it for the money rather than the love. And that's perfectly alright. //

We're not talking about taking a job here, we're talking about choosing a subject for further education, for an undergrad degree. I went to pains to say that passion wasn't a requirement, not even for taking a Uni course; but I'm going to assume passionate engagement with a subject is a top reason for taking a Uni course and that those who do a course not solely because of an anticipated job are more likely to complete. No stats for that sorry.

If you're just wanting a job in IT purely to have a job then why bother with university?

I know 2 cleaners - one does it for work, solely to get money to live; the other is passionate about it and chooses to do it in preference to other things (she's a qualified teacher!). Neither of them chose to spend 3 years of their life studying it though. Also if you're choosing a Uni course based on expected earnings levels of graduates of that course then you need to factor in the necessity of completion of the course, wouldn't it be far more sensible then to do something you have even a little experience in? If you've got the maths grades to get on a CompSci course then you're better surely with sticking with maths or economics and targeting the expected earnings of an accountant or actuary, ForEx trader or something?

>"entirely dispassionate about what they do for a living yet they still do brilliant work" //

Brilliant? Like they win awards for their work, they've been promoted to the tops of their fields? Brilliant. I can believe "good enough", even "better than average" quite easily.

[I'm not motivated by money, so I do find it hard to believe that people would devote their life to something _on_purpose_ that they have no passion towards.]

> There's no reason why anyone needs passion.

Is this advice you'd give to your kid?

Yes.

In the IT industry (here in the UK, and particularly in smaller companies) everyone pretends to be wildly enthusiast about learning the latest tech, and as such companies have realised that while everyone says they live and breathe this stuff companies don't need to give much incentive to people. If everyone gives up their evenings and weekends to learn the latest things then companies profits increase because they don't spend anything on training. Add to that no one gets paid overtime. No one gets a decent payrise. No one gets promoted. The only way to advance is to leave your current job and move to a better job somewhere else. All this because companies know that their staff are 'passionate' and will learn this stuff in their own time.

You don't need to be passionate about what you do for a living. You should like it otherwise you'll not enjoy day-to-day life very much, but if you're spending your own time doing things you should be learning in work you're wasting your life. You can always be passionate about something that isn't your job.

I think you're confusing being passionate about something with it being your favourite activity and being passionate about something with being a walkover for an exploitative firm/boss.

I used to work in IP and was passionate about it, ultimately I realised that my moral objections meant I couldn't continue in it. However I never did unpaid overtime. When I got home I messed with computers, went biking, and other things because I was also [more] passionate about those things. I'd devour popular media mentions of IP related to my work, but that wasn't doing work.

>if you're spending your own time doing things you should be learning in work you're wasting your life //

Not if you'd do them anyway.

>You don't need to be passionate about what you do for a living. //

I agree completely. But if you're spending 40+ hours doing something every week isn't it better if it floats-your-boat just a little?

No one is advocating for shoe-horning anyone into something they don't want to do. We are advocating for people who may have curiosity to pursue something, but do not for a variety of external, cultural pressures. We are talking about the best ways to remove those pressures - not pressure them into it.

> We are advocating for people who may have curiosity to pursue something, but do not for a variety of external, cultural pressures.

This strongly resonates with me, but I still fail to see how this becomes a gender issue. Intelligence is culturally depicted as nerdy for all genders. It's never been cool for anyone to be a software engineer. If anything I sympathize with black males the most because culturally they're seen as "not being real" or "acting white" for simply not dressing the part.

Catching footballs is cool. Singing is cool. Improving the world with technology is not. I think this problem has no gender preference.

Computers specifically, and technology in general, have been seen as for boys. Elsewhere in the thread, someone links to a great Planet Money episode which talks about how home computers were originally marketed to boys; its a fascinating listen, please seek it out.

cool and socially acceptable is not the same thing.

I think if you've gone through the whole of school with a desire to learn something in a subject area that the school likely teaches in, and the library certainly has information on, without having any experiences related to that subject area then you're not passionate about it.

It doesn't indicate it, which is why I didn't say that, but it suggests it.

Another analogy: if I always avoid eating chicken, I'm often offered it but refuse it - it suggests I'm not especially fond of chicken. It's possible I've just never tried it, that I've always liked the idea. It's possible it's my favourite food but I'm especially weird and so always refuse it. But it seems if I said "I'm going to eat nothing but chicken for the next 3 years of my life" you might say "Really?"; perhaps suggest I try chicken first?

This doesn't rule you out - as I already mentioned - it's fine to pursue a subject on a whim but, and this was the point I was responding to, if you're going to veer off in a new direction [or follow a whim] then it seems right that those looking out for you will question you on it, "really, are you sure you want to pursue a college course in this subject you've ignored all previous opportunities to learn?". There are plenty of good answers, but indeed one need not justify oneself to teachers and parents at 18yo or so - it's still right of them to raise the issue.

A lot of US schools don't offer any CS classes. For instance, 56% of high schools in California, a state notable for tech, do not offer CS or programming in high school [1]. In 2011, 2,100 schools were certified for AP CS out of about 42,000 high schools in the US [2]. That is five percent. Yes, some of those schools without a programming class have a book about visual basic in the library. Some of them might even have something about C or Java. But they don't necessarily have computers.

In my high school I did not have access to a computer on a regular basis. There were about 7 old computers in the library, which I couldn't go to during classes, for about 2400 students. There was also a computer lab in the basement which was used for classes that I never took because I was taking an IB/AP curriculum and didn't have room in my schedule. I was not from an extraordinarily poor school and I was accepted to MIT, as were peers -- the high school wasn't a place low in social or educational capital. Imagine all the schools that are.

Your analogy is fine for people who've been offered chicken consistently throughout their life -- all 5% of US students.

[1] http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_26510658/computer-scie... [2] http://www.exploringcs.org/resources/cs-statistics

That every high school teaches computer science or even offers computing classes beyond "here's how to run spell check in MS Word" is a large and largely incorrect assumption.

Most people who want to do something want to do it because they played around with it and enjoyed doing so. When the parent says "no experience", I think they mean people who never even bothered to play around, not just people who never worked in the field.

Sometimes people want to do something, but they've never had the chance until they go to a place that offers a vast array of new learning opportunities. Say, at college.

I took my first programming class in college. I was originally going to be an english major, and then changed my mind. I went on to earn a major in computer science, have worked in the field for more than 6 years and was the CTO of a successful startup which I sold earlier this year.

I see no reason why anyone should be questioned for wanting to try out a course of study.

Sometimes, people have no experience in an area because they were never given an opportunity to learn it. Or not enough of one. So, no. Taking courses in college is a common way for people to learn what they want to learn. I see no reason that computer science should be different.

>Don't you think that a young adult deciding to take further study in a subject they have no experience in - which suggests they have no real desire towards - should at least be asked by educators/parents "Are you sure that's what you want? Really?". If I'd never baked a thing in my life and said "I want to go to catering college" I'd pretty much expect teachers to say "Really?"; why is this different?

Why would you expect that? Everyone has to have a career in something, and chances are, it's not going to be their childhood hobbies.

We're often talking about taking CS 1 here, not deciding on a career path.

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