caroline@polya.Stanford.EDU (Caroline A. Lambert) (07/11/88)
I do not have a humanities background. I have an MS in geophysics, and lost my job as a geophysicist when I took a leave of absence to travel, which unfortunately coincided with the crash in oil prices, at the beginning of 1986. I naturally turned to computers as an alternate occupation since working with computers and writing programs was a large part of my work as a geophysicist. After over 100 rejections to applications, I came to the conclusion that the only way to break into the field was to go back to school, which is where I am now, taking an MS at Stanford. I am fortunate at least that my background allowed me to jump right into their program, with the only undergrad courses I have to make up being the computer science ones. So how people from humanities backgrounds manage to make the switch is a mystery to me. Could it be partly personality? I get the feeling some people can sell themselves into anything, whereas others, like me tend to be somewhat shy and are afflicted with that all-too-common problem among women, of lacking confidence in their abilities, no matter how good they are. Maybe it was because I was pregnant when I was job-hunting, but I hope that didn't have anything to do with it. There is also the problem that many of the companies where I live that hire scientific programmers are defense companies, and I'm not a citizen. Now that I have some basic computer science courses under my belt, finding a good summer job was never so easy. Perhaps I should leave you with the impression that now I will live happily ever after, but that is not the end of the story. I haven't finished my degree, but I'm pregnant again...it's going to be tough. Sometimes I feel like a freak because I have never met any other woman graduate student, in computer science or any other science/engineering field, who has children. Am I really crazy? Caroline Lambert