NicoleG
Phoenix
Joined: Dec 26, 2011
Age: 36
Posts: 661
Location: Dallas-Fort Worth
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 Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2012 11:17 pm Post subject: |
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| monkeykoder wrote: | | I get to have a degree that was amazing amounts of fun to attain. |
While being an accounting major, I decided to take physics as my science class, and I begged for the physics for science majors class, because the only difference was having knowledge of calculus. It was while watching the student tutor during one of the after-class tutoring sessions (I only went because I was curious what they did in there) when I finally became aware of exactly how jaded I was with my accounting courses. His excitement about solving physics problems brought back the same feeling I had back in high school calculus class. From that day on, I was convinced I had to get away from accounting and into something I really enjoyed. I like physics as a hobby, so I changed to that as my major, and I probably would have kept going with that and been fine.
The second turning point was when I was in the computer science building heading to class, and I noticed while waiting for the elevator the list of which floors housed which departments. I saw robotics. While I like understanding actuators and all, it didn't sound very challenging, and I was really looking forward to getting into my quantum physics and electrical engineering classes. However, the robotics idea stuck. I've always been fascinated with robots and robotic behavior, and how our brains work and process things, and, of all things, child development. I had never put all of those interests into a cohesive group before. That led me thinking about A.I. I talked with a computer science adviser who was more than happy regarding my ideas, and said the department really needed people like me, but he felt that the computer science department wasn't right for me. He sent me to talk with a professor in the psychology department, which sounded a bit weird to me. Come to find out, this second professor received his mathematics degree at MIT and was now lecturing on neural networks. He also agreed that my interest was fascinating, but also felt that the psychology degree was also too limiting. Luckily, my university has an interdisciplinary studies degree, which the psychology professor suggested I go and find out about.
Sure enough, I now have a BS in A.I. research and development, with emphases in cognitive psychology, neural networks, a minor in math (specifically matrices, game theory, and multi-variate statistics), a minor in business/accounting (as those hours were able to carry over), and a year and half of intern experience in the cognitive psychology lab running various experiments and helping other experiments set up data gathering databases, etc. The more I think about it, I would have excelled amazingly well with math, but I think I ultimately would have still preferred where I ended up. Understanding how the brain does what it does utilizes a large portion of my spatial reasoning in a way that really works for me. Even calculus was starting to get boring, and I recalled asking my teacher in high school if it was ever going to get more complicated. (What kid asks their teacher if calculus is ever going to get more complicated?!?)
I did take a year of Pascal programming back in high school, and I have books for C++ and Java, and a few other books for basic game programming and Unreal programming. I just haven't gotten around to focusing on them yet. There's just not enough hours in the day! (There would be if I wasn't having to work my day job. *grumbles*) |
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monkeykoder
Blue Jay
Joined: Feb 08, 2012
Age: 27
Posts: 76
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| Posted: Sat Feb 11, 2012 12:45 am Post subject: |
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| Now that sounds like fun. |
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Solvejg
i wear a fez now, fez's are cool
Joined: Mar 03, 2011
Posts: 6189
Location: gallifrey
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| Posted: Sat Feb 11, 2012 6:41 pm Post subject: |
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| Another woman in science here. I am studying paleontology at university. My subjects this semester are Maths, Biology, Genetics, Geology (sedimentary layers), Statistics. |
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JesseCat
Sea Gull
Joined: Dec 27, 2011
Posts: 228
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| Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2012 12:36 am Post subject: |
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Women are socialized differently than men. This does not mean women do not have the capacity to be successful scientists, physicists, engineers, etc. Girls are brought up to care more about the feelings of others along with socializing etc. Boys are more likely to be encouraged by family and friends to do "boy stuff" (i.e. play with robots, learn math and science, etc.) There were actually studies done showing that at a young age, girls do much better at mathematics than boys. As the girls get older, (hormones kick in, societal pressures kick in, eating disorders and body image pressure and all that fun stuff girls get to worry about) they tend to do worse and worse in these fields. Other studies show that females taking math and science tests in the mere presence of males will subconsciously encourage them to perform worse on the tasks at hand (girls are raised to believe men do not like smart women).
There are many variables at hand.
(Loosely paraphrasing a past Sociology professor on data and studies that can probably be found with a quick Google search. But I don't feel like digging them up). The numbers in the studies don't lie. Those are the conclusions social scientists came to based on the data presented. |
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heavenlyabyss
Phoenix
Joined: Sep 10, 2011
Posts: 530
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| Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2012 8:45 am Post subject: |
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| Women have the ability to do as well in science as men, it's just that society conditions men to win while condition women to admire these oh-so-brilliant men. |
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Ellendra
Snowy Owl
Joined: Dec 22, 2011
Posts: 127
Location: Wi, USA
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| Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2012 3:04 pm Post subject: |
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I don't know about anyone else, but at my high school there was a lot of hostility toward girls who were good at math and science. Not from the boys, from the other girls!
One incident I remember, a girl I thought i was friends with was going around the caffeteria asking if anybody could help her with her biology homework. I made the mistake of asking what the assignment was. She lit into me! She started screaming about how dare I insult her like that, how she hated my very existance, how if I so much as looked at her again she was going to break every bone in my body and then sue me for harrassment. All this in front of a hundred witnesses.
I later figured out that she had no interest in getting help with her homework, what she wanted was for some guy to put his arm around her shoulder while he did the assignment for her.
(sorry about any typos, my cat is helping me type) |
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Fnord
Enigmatic Threadkilling Metasyntactic Variable
Joined: May 07, 2008
Posts: 18376
Location: Stendec
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| Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2012 3:19 pm Post subject: |
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The last few women I interviewed for an entry-level engineer's position could not pass a simple exam involving nothing more difficult than Ohm's Law, reactance, parallel values, and standing-wave ratios. Each of the same number of men solved each equation correctly.
If you have an electrical engineering degree, then you should know these things, and not rely on tears and cleavage to get you by.
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ruveyn
Phoenix
Joined: Sep 22, 2008
Age: 76
Posts: 29705
Location: New Jersey
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| Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2012 5:19 pm Post subject: |
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| Fnord wrote: | The last few women I interviewed for an entry-level engineer's position could not pass a simple exam involving nothing more difficult than Ohm's Law, reactance, parallel values, and standing-wave ratios. Each of the same number of men solved each equation correctly.
If you have an electrical engineering degree, then you should know these things, and not rely on tears and cleavage to get you by.
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I have met genuine female electrical engineers who know their sh*t. By the way, the famous film actress and beauty Hedy Lamar was an electronics genius who invented a frequency skipping device that enabled telephone and radio communications remain secret.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedy_Lamarr
ruveyn |
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Fnord
Enigmatic Threadkilling Metasyntactic Variable
Joined: May 07, 2008
Posts: 18376
Location: Stendec
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| Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2012 5:35 pm Post subject: |
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| ruveyn wrote: | | Fnord wrote: | | The last few women I interviewed for an entry-level engineer's position could not pass a simple exam involving nothing more difficult than Ohm's Law, reactance, parallel values, and standing-wave ratios. Each of the same number of men solved each equation correctly. If you have an electrical engineering degree, then you should know these things, and not rely on tears and cleavage to get you by. |
I have met genuine female electrical engineers who know their sh*t. By the way, the famous film actress and beauty Hedy Lamar was an electronics genius who invented a frequency skipping device that enabled telephone and radio communications remain secret. ruveyn |
Yep! And Admiral "Amazing" Grace Hopper was not only one of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer, she developed the first compiler for a computer programming language, and coined the term "bug" for any error in the system!
My sister is also an engineer.
It just seems that around here (SouCal), the women seem more inclined to either bluff their way through EE classes or chose a liberal-arts major instead. At least, if there are any who graduate as an EE on their own merit, they're not knocking on our doors... |
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NicoleG
Phoenix
Joined: Dec 26, 2011
Age: 36
Posts: 661
Location: Dallas-Fort Worth
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| Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2012 5:58 pm Post subject: |
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| ruveyn wrote: | | By the way, the famous film actress and beauty Hedy Lamar was an electronics genius who invented a frequency skipping device that enabled telephone and radio communications remain secret. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedy_Lamarr |
Interesting read. I was trying to explain to someone a couple years ago, while discussing differences in AI versus human inputs and outputs, that it would be possible for future AI communications to include constantly rotating ciphers and language databases that could so easily make trying to decode a potential secret AI language practically impossible without direct access to the programming used. (Think of the enigma machine gone wild!) I wonder if I could have used this frequency hopping and piano roll description to better explain it. Then again, I didn't think I was making too much of a complicated description in the first place. |
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ruveyn
Phoenix
Joined: Sep 22, 2008
Age: 76
Posts: 29705
Location: New Jersey
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| Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2012 8:36 pm Post subject: |
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| Fnord wrote: |
It just seems that around here (SouCal), the women seem more inclined to either bluff their way through EE classes or chose a liberal-arts major instead. At least, if there are any who graduate as an EE on their own merit, they're not knocking on our doors... |
At MIT the female engineers know their stuff and don't shave their legs.
ruveyn |
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Fnord
Enigmatic Threadkilling Metasyntactic Variable
Joined: May 07, 2008
Posts: 18376
Location: Stendec
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| Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2012 8:39 pm Post subject: |
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| ruveyn wrote: | | Fnord wrote: | | It just seems that around here (SouCal), the women seem more inclined to either bluff their way through EE classes or chose a liberal-arts major instead. At least, if there are any who graduate as an EE on their own merit, they're not knocking on our doors... |
At MIT the female engineers know their stuff and don't shave their legs. ruveyn |
The last intelligent face-to-face conversation I had with any woman other than my wife was with the psychologist who diagnosed me.
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ruveyn
Phoenix
Joined: Sep 22, 2008
Age: 76
Posts: 29705
Location: New Jersey
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| Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2012 8:48 pm Post subject: |
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| Fnord wrote: | | ruveyn wrote: | | Fnord wrote: | | It just seems that around here (SouCal), the women seem more inclined to either bluff their way through EE classes or chose a liberal-arts major instead. At least, if there are any who graduate as an EE on their own merit, they're not knocking on our doors... |
At MIT the female engineers know their stuff and don't shave their legs. ruveyn |
The last intelligent face-to-face conversation I had with any woman other than my wife was with the psychologist who diagnosed me.
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You don't get out and around enough.
ruveyn |
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Fnord
Enigmatic Threadkilling Metasyntactic Variable
Joined: May 07, 2008
Posts: 18376
Location: Stendec
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| Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2012 8:49 pm Post subject: |
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| ruveyn wrote: | | Fnord wrote: | | ruveyn wrote: | | Fnord wrote: | | It just seems that around here (SouCal), the women seem more inclined to either bluff their way through EE classes or chose a liberal-arts major instead. At least, if there are any who graduate as an EE on their own merit, they're not knocking on our doors... |
At MIT the female engineers know their stuff and don't shave their legs. ruveyn |
The last intelligent face-to-face conversation I had with any woman other than my wife was with the psychologist who diagnosed me. |
You don't get out and around enough. ruveyn |
I'm married! Nuff said? |
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ruveyn
Phoenix
Joined: Sep 22, 2008
Age: 76
Posts: 29705
Location: New Jersey
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| Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2012 9:16 pm Post subject: |
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| Fnord wrote: | | ruveyn wrote: | | Fnord wrote: | | ruveyn wrote: | | Fnord wrote: | | It just seems that around here (SouCal), the women seem more inclined to either bluff their way through EE classes or chose a liberal-arts major instead. At least, if there are any who graduate as an EE on their own merit, they're not knocking on our doors... |
At MIT the female engineers know their stuff and don't shave their legs. ruveyn |
The last intelligent face-to-face conversation I had with any woman other than my wife was with the psychologist who diagnosed me. |
You don't get out and around enough. ruveyn |
I'm married! Nuff said? |
So am I. That does not preclude having intelligent conversations with women other than one's spouse, sister or daughter.
ruveyn |
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