It's not a magic touch, it's a learnable skill.
A skill that's damn hard to learn and takes years of dedication, introspection, and humility, but learnable nonetheless.
33 karma · joined January 4, 2011
A skill that's damn hard to learn and takes years of dedication, introspection, and humility, but learnable nonetheless.
It's nice if you can build a relationship between your institution and a school so you can have a sort of standing gig every few years.
(Also note that some schools will totally love this and others might be unresponsive, so don't give up if the first one doesn't happen)
Nerd Nite does the same thing, but with beer: nerdnite.com
Be a guest speaker at high schools in your area. Mike Merzenich graciously came to speak to my Neuroscience students, and they found it informative and inspiring.
Vi Hart does some really really neat math videos: http://vihart.com/
Above all, practice talking math to non-mathies. Use lots and lots of analogies, and don't forget to tap into the enthusiasm that brought you to the field in the first place.
But I wonder if the argumentative and negative postings on this site are coming from relative beginners on the site, or people who are more established?
But yes, having such an imbalance in our community leads to this being a salient part of social interaction when there are much more important characteristics that should rise to the top.
People who aren't rich, white, straight, and male don't have the privilege of forgetting about their own identity the way you do. In the context of tech for women, this means always wondering if you were hired, fired, or asked to coffee because you are a woman or because you are interesting and competent. It's knowing that if you mess up, you are reinforcing stereotypes about all women. When you walk into a room at a conference and you can count the other women on one hand, men may not notice but women definitely do. We don't have the privilege of forgetting our gender in that context. It's not that men are evil, it's just the way privilege works: when you benefit from it, it's hard to see the experience of those who don't.
If you want to hear more about this idea even more eloquently, check out the classic article about white privilege that puts it better than I ever could: http://www.nymbp.org/reference/WhitePrivilege.pdf
Does he have any idea how much this is destroying your trust in him? Tell him your expectations, give him a chance to shape up, and if he doesn't, you know what to do.
This article, particularly the section about attitude towards noobs, is all tied up in why some women never go deep into programming. There are lots of other reasons too, but this one is especially well articulated by the OP.
If you are in the keyboard-allergist camp, ponder this one long and hard.
How on earth does this system help you determine whether the pair is interested in each other? It is only having one party bid on the other's proposed activity, which may or may not have anything to do with their actual personality.
There's also something a little slimy about having people 'bid' to win my attention. Income (and willingness to spend it impressing strangers) is not my primary criterion. It's not even in the top ten.