chk@purdue.UUCP (Chuck Koelbel) (03/04/86)
In article <527@cisden.UUCP>, john@cisden.UUCP (John Woolley) writes: > When I was majoring in math at the University of Colorado, about two thirds > of us students, undergraduates and graduates, were women. The professors > were mostly men, though. > > The sciences that seemed to me to be overwhelmingly filled with men were > physics, chemistry, engineering of various sorts (my sister was the only > woman majoring in Mechanical Engineering in her class), and geology. Women > seemed very numerous in biology, the "social sciences", and math. > > So maybe the stereotype is mistaken? (They are occasionally, I've noticed.) > Or was CU really abnormal in this respect? I don't know if CU is "abnormal," but my experience has been that the stereo- type is at least a reasonable approximation to reality. While I was an undergraduate (Augustana College, Rock Island, IL) there weren't many women in math / computer science; maybe 25-33% of enrollment. (Side note: many of those women were planning on going into teaching in math; most of the men were looking for jobs as programmers or actuaries.) Physics was also heavily male. I don't know about biology or chemistry. There were more women in social sciences (except economics) and languages. Business was pretty evenly divided (maybe fewer women in accounting, since the department head was very sexist). And Purdue's CS department only has 3 women PhD students. Chuck Koelbel