Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Computer Science Diversity

I attended a top program in Computer Science, where the gender split was 60 / 40.  Then I worked for five years at a major company.  Therefore, my expectation is always that anyone regardless of their gender, race, etc can succeed in Computer Science.  Now, recently there was a short lived Barbie book about being a computer engineer.  Ignoring any semantics about Computer Science, Software Engineering, and Computer Engineering being different disciplines, the work still did not portray women in the more technical efforts.  I'd rather read a collegue's remix of the work.

In a different vein of diversity, as a white male, I have been regularly been excluded from tech events because I dislike the taste of alcohol.  Thus at the (especially) frequent events in industry settings where alcohol is served, I was not socializing with my colleagues, and instead would inevitably find myself back at my desk working.  As a consequence, I was effectively excluded from the event.  And now in academia, I find myself attending conferences, where the social events are also touted for serving alcohol.  I have no issue with serving alcohol, rather it is the near exclusivity of which the drink options trend that way.  Thus a recent article struck a chord in the continuing desirability of extending the options and respecting the decision (for whatever reason) to not drink alcohol.