Discrimination against ubernerds In addition to demonstrated academic competence, the Admissions Office began giving more weight to non-academic factors, looking for applicants with leadership potential and a commitment to give back to the community.
Mentoring Programme The most extensive single activity of the Women@SCS Advisory Council has been the Big Sister/Little Sister program, which pairs upper-class and graduate students with firstyear and sophomore CS majors.
Changing emphasis/delivery of (introductory) courses Even more, insights provided by the Council are likely to have profound impact on the curriculum. In her green paper circulated at a meeting with faculty, senior Ting-Chih Shih clearly pointed out that the current CS undergraduate curriculum serves male students far better than females. For one, the entry programming courses favor students with more experience (usually men) who seem to get better scores effortlessly As a result, many women begin thinking that learning computer science takes innate talent and no amount of hard work will pay off They start to lose confidence and forget their initial interest in computer science Moreover, the way lectures are presented seem to appeal to men more. In general, females feel that the birds-eye view of a problem, and the end result, are more relevant than the coding details in between