<p>Great stories, QM. One question (as it kind of relates to potential roadblocks in pursuing a field that requires years of study). I know most PhD’s are funded but I would imagine parental support is very helpful, even if it is in the form of not feeling pressured to get a job right out of college . Do you find that most PhD students tend to come from educated , financially secure families (as maybe cobrat was alluding to in some fields and the article I posted also mentions finances) or is it a mixed bag these days? My BIL is a PhD but he was in school for MANY years at 2 different Ivy League schools (different undergraduate and graduate schools) plus study in Europe… He was the eldest so do wonder what would have happened if the two younger siblings had wanted to also pursue a PhD . One other sibling got an MBA but worked for a few years before doing so.</p>
<p>Speaking from my own experience at a few super-techy places, the women were less interested in careers which had a reputation for basically having to take a vow of poverty and not have a good work/life balance. Best case scenario is that for 6 years of grad schools you make $25,000, a postdoc can be 2-4 years where you again earn in the 40K range, and then if you are a star you may end up with an assistant professor job making like 80 K ? That’s an extra 10 years of basically getting paid nothing while putting in 80 hrs/week. One of my friends figured out what we were being paid per hour as grad students and it was close to minimum wage. You could have started out making 80K as an engineer, and a lot more than that in other jobs from schools like MIT.</p>
<p>The chem E majors were excellent at math and would have done well as a math major. Chem E was, in fact, probably a lot harder than applied math at MIT. Probably, people who did well at chem E could have also done well at physics.</p>
<p>Anyway, I think the women who are in the position to choose among professional (doctor/lawyer/engineer) vs. science careers were more likely to have choose the former. While there were a good chunk of the male population who chose more traditional careers for similar reasons (better pay, more reasonable work/life balance), more of them chose the science careers because they were less risk averse and had a more romantic view of the sacrifices involved. And for those of you who say you work the same hours, well, at the very least the perception that scientists work more hours is pervasive.</p>
<p>I think in order to raise the number of women going into physics and math, the other options they can go into besides the extremely hard-to-get faculty jobs need to be publicized (e.g., the various kinds of analysts and consultant jobs that are out there.) One of my friends asked my math teacher what a math major could do if they weren’t a professor; the teacher said they could be an actuary. That guy ended up being a software engineer instead. He was one of the top people in the country in math in high school, too. The question, “Yeah, but what can you do with that?” is a question asked by a lot of smart STEM-oriented kids, and I think it is asked more by the women. In summary, I think advertising the safety nets and parachutes available for math/physics majors would help because women are less likely to jump off a cliff than men.</p>
<p>I think it is important for people who might be interested in science or math to know that they can most likely get into a Ph.D. program that offers full funding. </p>
<p>collegealum314 is right about what “full funding” means, about $25,000 a year, maybe $30,000, rarely above $35,000. On the other hand, if one is willing to live a student life style, it is enough. It is less than one could earn with alternate career choices, to be sure. In academia, though, pretty much the only way to have the opportunity to pursue research on the topics that you have chosen, instead of the topics someone else chooses, is to get a Ph.D. A Ph.D. does generally give you better options outside of academics (although for some types of jobs, a master’s is sort of the “sweet spot”).</p>
<p>In the sciences, at the places I am familiar with, a Ph.D. tends to take 5.5 to 6 years. At some universities, it’s closer to 5. During that time, a Ph.D. student in the sciences can generally expect to be fully supported by a graduate fellowship, his/her research adviser’s grants, departmental funds, or a teaching assistantship (nominally 20 hrs/week of commitments to be a TA, in some cases a bit less). At many universities, a student can go directly from B.S. to Ph.D. work, without getting a master’s in between. Some universities do require the master’s but it is generally pro forma for students they want.</p>
<p>In the humanities, Ph.D.s often take longer–more like 7 or 8 years in some places, and I think the job market is worse. I would conjecture that people doing Ph.D.s in the humanities tend to come from wealthier families, on average, than people in the sciences and engineering. </p>
<p>The question of parental support in terms of the student not needing to get a job right away after a bachelor’s degree is crucial. A Ph.D. student in the sciences can be self-sufficient financially, but he/she is not going to be supplementing the finances of the rest of the family.</p>
<p>I agree pretty much 100% with collegealum314’s post #1161. </p>
<p>The issue of having children and the timing of that , along with the timing of tenure decisions also plays into women’s decisions, because the career structure has not adapted enough to the presence of women on the faculty.</p>
<p>A lot of schools will “stop the tenure clock” for a year, when an untenured woman has a child. Most places also grant the extra year to the father as well. This means that the person gets one extra year to accumulate the publication and grant record needed for tenure. So it’s 6 years instead of 5 many places, but with a longer pre-tenure period at the “top” schools. </p>
<p>I think that anyone who has actually had the responsibility for caring for a young child, and who knows the time demands of an academic career, will think that’s really ludicrous. One extra year in no way compensates for the additional time demands of responsible care for a child.</p>
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<p>Ironically, the lucrative lure of analyst and consulting jobs and the financial and business organizational consulting firms’ desire for elite pedigreed students, especially those with STEM backgrounds has been a factor in luring many folks…including women away from STEM. </p>
<p>Especially considering one only needs a BA/BS degree if one’s GPA is high enough, is from a pedigreed college, and one passes the multi-stage interview. </p>
<p>One relative who graduated from an HYPS school as a STEM major was recruited into a well-known international organizational business consulting firm not too long after receiving admission from a Top 5 PhD program in her STEM field. She ended up permanently leaving that field for the business world and earned a Top 3 MBA gratis thanks to said firm on the way. </p>
<p>Even engineering/cs is not immune as some friends who are/were Columbia SEAS students after the late ‘90s have recounted. The common joke among them is Columbia SEAS’ main mission is to produce ibankers and business consultants for the likes of Goldman Sachs and BCG, not producing bona-fide engineers working in engineering/technology. </p>
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<p>That is the case with the engineering/CS fields I know of. Most engineering/CS relatives and colleagues have said they would earn an MS in engineering/CS and/or sometimes an MBA, but would scoff at the idea of pursuing a PhD. </p>
<p>The MS/MBA is considered more than enough to advance to the most senior levels of most engineering/tech firms unless one desires a research position or works in a highly specialized engineering/tech firm requiring advanced research expertise. </p>
<p>Here’s what contributed and/or held me back:</p>
<p>Contributed:
- My mother had happy memories of being taught algebra from her Grandfather via games/parlor tricks. (The sort where you do a bunch of manipulations and end up being able to tell someone how old they are.)
- I was home schooled/one room school house for 4th and 5th grade with my mother as my teacher
- Curriculum in 4th and 5th grade was Greater Cleveland new math program. All full of set theory and the like. My Mom and I learned it together.
- Mrs. Eliopolis who taught Algebra in 8th grade. Wonderful woman.
- High school math was mostly pretty good, and class sizes got really small after Algebra II which was when most girls of that era quit.</p>
<p>Not so good
- My all girls prep school wouldn’t even let our class take science in 9th grade
- 8th grade science teacher gave extra credit for knowing sports stuff.
- Terrible high school physics teacher so I never even took it. By the time I did (senior year in college) it was really too late to pursue. </p>
<p>In the end my science teachers never got me that excited (though I liked Chem in 11th grade). Since I liked art and math, and knew I had architects as grandparents (though both died before I could get to know them, I was exposed to the idea of being an architect and it seemed like a good fit for my interests. I think in another life History of Science and a career in writing about science for the masses (a la Scientific American articles) would have been a viable career choice, but I have no regrets about roads not taken. </p>
<p>Time to dust off those old king and queen outfits from years back, xig?? I forget the thread it was in.</p>
<p>Mathmom, I was surprised to hear you say that most girls stopped at Algebra ll in high school in your era. I had geometry and trigonometry in high school but stopped at that. I can’t remember for sure if our school (public) offered calculus but if it did I didn’t take it, even though I would have been on track for it since I started algebra early. I really enjoyed physics in high school and part of that was because of a teacher who made it interesting. </p>
<p>“Speaking from my own experience at a few super-techy places, the women were less interested in careers which had a reputation for basically having to take a vow of poverty and not have a good work/life balance.”</p>
<p>Though ironically a lot of women (not the ones we are talking about) ARE interested in careers that have a reputation for basically having to take a vow of poverty. How “female-tilted” are preschool teachers, daycare operators, and so forth - jobs which don’t typically leave one able to support oneself or one’s children, and almost “demand” that they are add-ons to a spouse with a more lucrative job? (I know I’m going off track here, but the sentence struck me)</p>
<p>I am kind of an anomaly here since I’m mathy but not sciencey - indeed, I only took 3 years of high school science (physical science, bio and chemistry) and took the “rocks for jocks” types of courses in college to satisfy my science requirement.</p>
<p>I too was surprised to hear that most girls stopped at Algebra II in hs in your era. I’m 49, to give some perspective on age. When I was in middle school, I was identified as being math-gifted and whoever-did-the-identifying suggested that I be enrolled in college classes, but my parents (wisely, as it turned out) chose just to have me accelerated in school for math class (so I went to the high school for math class but was still in middle school). I moved school districts midway through, but went through to Calculus BC my senior year (which was the highest that the school offered) and it was pretty 50/50 girls and boys. </p>
<p>I went on to do this program: <a href=“http://www.mmss.northwestern.edu/”>http://www.mmss.northwestern.edu/</a> It was more male than female, but not overwhelmingly so, and that didn’t really matter to me one way or the other. I just never felt any issue that I was “suspect” because I was a girl. I was “suspect” because I was a reasonably attractive, non-nerdy girl who liked fashion and makeup and boys, but not because I was a girl qua girl. </p>
<p>I’ve never encountered or felt any discrimination in my career, save one episode in which someone made a pass at me (which I laughed off and we became great friends and still are to this day, and didn’t negatively impact my career one bit). What a lot of you are describing as actual discouragement / discrimination is completely foreign to me. I worked for a major brand-name company with plenty of women in management positions, including a former CEO who I worked for, and the current CEO. My current company (small boutique consulting) is a woman-owned business, one of the top 500 in the country (or something like that, not sure exactly what). My experience is just very different from all of yours – I see the “old boys’ network” as very dated, and speaking more to the out-of-touchness of those old boys than anything else. Then again, my field involves analysis but in the context of marketing and advertising – so lots of stats and data crunching are used, but no “labs” per se.</p>
<p>What contributed? I just liked math. A lot. Found it fun. Did all the problems in the book, and then some. Entered / won various contests (though nothing at the big fancy levels, just local / state kinds of stuff at the time.) Thought deeply about what it all meant. My parents would have supported me in whatever I wanted to do (within reason of course). Didn’t occur to me to think or worry about whether this was “womanly” or not. </p>
<p>There were always women who would go for careers that included more aggressive challenges, who had a lust for that and those who didn’t. Many of us did have family that encouraged some limitless thinking. I think that’s what we need more of, to encourage the next generations. Part of that is exposure, hands on- not just to the tasks, but to the sorts of critical thinking.</p>
<p>My mother’s work was for firms involved in, among other things, computer development (including early internet, I remember a demo of a touch screen, way, way back in the dark ages.) Even early in college, girls would ask, “Oh, is she a secretary?” Times have changed, but this movement comes slowly. </p>
<p>" I.e. Some MIT CS students who were known on campus for living in the computer labs for days without showering with the expected odor/funk permeating those labs back in the late '90s/early '00s. Observed similar things at some past Sci-Fi/anime conventions I’ve attended/chaperoned. There was a reason why those running conventions had to place large posters encouraging some convention attendees to take showers daily during the hot muggy summers when those conventions were held."</p>
<p>Well, I suppose this gets back to the “no soap” discussion. Really, no one’s brilliance should excuse them from basic hygiene requirements. And if someone is going to forego soap, toothbrushing, etc. then they shouldn’t be “surprised” if they get excluded from things, including MIT admissions.</p>
<p>On that note, it boils down to: who do you want on your team, knowing the team itself is about more than the task at hand? And knowing that success is more than who’s first to solve that problem or the brightest or some numerical measure. No one is picking the best machine to manage tasks. They’re building human teams that should interact well- whether it’s the campus, the division or the department. </p>
<p>Right. And “interact well” doesn’t necessarily mean “isn’t nerdy” or “is the most popular guy at the lunch table” or “is smooth with the ladies” or “great at parties.” One can be nerdy, serious, intense, quiet, reserved and be a fabulous team player. </p>
<p>The flip side is that a kid who “isn’t nerdy” “is the most popular guy at the lunch table” "smooth with the “ladies” and “great at parties” can also be a fabulous team player. </p>
<p>PG, I probably graduated 7 or 8 years ahead of you. The year after I graduated the school woke up to its inadequate science offerings and constructed a building devoted to the sciences. And every year more and more girls took math. But in my class of 80 there were 4 seniors taking calculus and 1 junior. When I was a freshman at Harvard there was only one woman majoring in math in the senior class. She was always complaining that the professors couldn’t remember her name. “I’m the only one ! How hard can it be?” So when we complain about how bad it is now, you really have to think about how far we’ve come too. And of the 8 girls accepted to Harvard my senior year, I was the only one taking calculus. Some may have been taking pre-calc, but I know that at least one stopped with Algebra 2. There weren’t that many of us who came to the school having had Algebra 1 in 8th grade. I don’t think there was intentional discouragement, but if a girl said, I’m done with math after Algebra 2. No one said, you should close doors so early in your life. No one said, you can’t get into X elite college without three years of science (the school required 2.)</p>
<p>There are still plenty of public and private high schools which allow students to graduate with Algebra 2…or sometimes far less and less than 3 years of lab science or sometimes even none. </p>
<p>An ex-GF of a younger friend who was an elementary ed major at a directional state U in the NE was struggling through a 9th grade level algebra meant to fulfill the math requirement for her undergrad program sometime in the early-mid '00s. </p>
<p>I got called in to act as her academic tutor after said friend grew frustrated at her not getting get what we’d consider simple basic arithmetic/algebraic concepts. </p>
<p>Turns out the frustration was justified as it seemed one major contributing factor to the issue was her unwillingness to buckle down and practice, not putting in even the minimum requisite effort to try learning the material, and tuning him/Prof/TA/anyone else who was trying to help her. </p>
<p>Also, I had an older college classmate who attended a respectable East Coast boarding school where they allowed him to graduate with just 2 years of science; non-lab based “rocks for jocks” type courses at that.
It probably contributed to his struggles in a “rocks for jocks” type science class he took, especially considering it required some labwork…even though it was of the “so easy even a Geico caveman could do it” variety. </p>
<p>Those two cases really puzzled me as most school districts I know of require at least 3 years of science courses WITH LAB and require completion of math up to trig at the very least. </p>
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<p>Well…those CS majors already received admission to MIT. Considering how much of a sine qua non/holy grail of nerddom that was, they probably could care less about being excluded from other things. </p>
<p>mathmom, I’m more your age and I had algebra in 8th grade. But the difference for me was probably that I went to a public school in a pretty working class neighborhood. The goal for most of the good students was to at least get to college and thinking about “elite” colleges wasn’t particularly on the radar for the vast majority of people. There wasn’t the emphasis on first generation, opportunities for women, diversity in general back then that there is today.</p>