Female students are begining to embrace the field of computer science.

Women in Computer Science

By: Josh Kurtz

Posted: 1/11/08

The number of females majoring in computer science compared to males in America has dropped recently, according to the national Center for Women & Information Technology.

The number of women in America applying for professorships in the field has also decreased, according to the Center.

Computer science was considered a subject that had the potential to be a model field for gender equity when its popularity grew in the early 1980s, the Boston Globe wrote.

According to the National Science Foundation, women today earn less than 30 percent of all bachelor's degrees in computer science. The high point was in 1985, when women earned 38 percent of all degrees in the subject.

"It's a well-known problem," Yuanfang Cai, a Drexel professor of computer science, said about the gender difference in the field.

Drexel, a school often cited for its technology programs, has experienced the drop in the number of women in computer science.

According to Chad Ethridge, assistant director of the Drexel University Office of Undergraduate Admissions, Drexel has six incoming women computer science majors for the 2007-2008 school year. Four of these majors are transfer students, among whom two are international students, and the other two students are freshmen.

By comparison, 73 male computer science majors entered Drexel as freshmen or transfer students this year.

Over the last three years, a total of 21 female computer science students have entered Drexel as either freshmen or transfer students, while 224 male computer science majors have entered Drexel over the same time period, Ethridge said.

Cai said she recently had a 25-person software architecture class made up entirely of males.

She also said she believes that part of the reason for the gender gap is the time constraints that the field requires, that women who want to have families can have a difficult time staying in the field, in part because it is a subject where people need to constantly learn new material.

However, Cai said that women who really enjoy the field can overcome these obstacles.

Cai attended college in China, where she said a greater percentage of women have attained degrees in computer science.

"[In China,] we are told, if a boy can do it, a girl can also do it," Cai said.

Women professors in the country have taken a leadership role in the subject as well, Cai said.

According to the Boston Globe, the image of computer science as male-dominated also may have hurt the number of women in the field.

The Boston Globe wrote that educators did not feel the need to go against the popular image of computer science as a male-dominated field because the major was so popular in the 1980s.

Also, this perception could have hurt the amount of women enrolled in the major down the road, according to the article.

Drexel has a chapter of the Women in Computing Society, for which Cai serves as the advisor for this group. The organization holds activities at least once per month.

The Society has sent students to events at Carnegie-Mellon University and the Grace Hopper celebration of Women in Computing, among other trips.

"I think [the Society] is really good for the students. … The events really broaden the students' horizons," Cai said.

The Drexel chapter of the Society currently has approximately 20 student members.