#thisgirlcodes

(This has been sitting on my drafts, half answered long enough, so I’m just gonna finished it now) 

Growing up, I’ve always liked numbers and building things (also, dismantle everything my parents allowed me to). Now, I’ve also grew in a house were gender roles were deeply stablished so having a “girl” that preferred LEGOs and Bionicles to Barbies was pretty upsetting for the female half of my family. I grew up hearing that computers, Legos, remote cars and things like that were for boys. It was like that until I started high school and I kind of “rebelled”. Technology and Maths were my favourite subjects, I despised everything my family told me was for girls and I turned into a tomboy. My father was the enabler and the only one who encouraged me at first to take robotics as an elective. Turns out, I really loved it. But in a 25 students class, I was the only “girl”. Funny thing, once we got past the “oh, why is a girl in this class” they actually respected me. They paid attention to what I said, nobody thought less of me (both of the robotics teacher played a huge part on this, tho). Then again, same thing happened next year in Technology class, and the year after that. I also helped create the first robotic club of my HS and I’d go to talk to the younger girls to encourage them to join the club. Then I started Uni and everything was wrong again. Firstly, out of more than 400 students, only 30 were women. I heard a LOT of stupid things about women in this four years. That we shouldn’t study engineering, that we were too stupid to be there… Mostly from the teacher, but it’s not like the students were any better.

You can see in the little things, they don’t think you should be there even if they don’t actually said it. You have that extra pressure, you have to be the best if you want to be anything at all. If you’re not the best, if you’re not the person with the best mark, they treat you like an idiot. 

Every time I ask something, I can hear this little condescending tone in their answer. If I don’t understand something the first time, they look at me like I’m an idiot. In group projects, your opinions are never as worth as the ones from your male peers or you get outright ignored…

TL;DR: As I get older, I’m feeling more and more like a piece of furniture in this field. Also, if you’re not the best, your opinion is not worth anything.

I’ve never had any really bad experience throughout my education so far, for which I’m quite thankful. But, I think for a long of girls, it not just having a bad experience that makes them afraid for pursue computer science. Sometimes, it's just the matter that there aren’t a lot of girls who do end up doing computer science, that makes girls not want to do computer science.For example, in high school when I signed up for computer science just because I couldn’t find another course I wanted to take. I was kind of excited for computer science cause I thought maybe I’d get to make a website. I ended up showing up early to the class, and so I sat down and waited for other students to arrive. Slowly, the room started to fill with more and more boys, and I got more and more uncomfortable. Everyone around me was talking and I was just sitting alone, silent. Would I end up being the only girl in the class? 

Then, an another girl walked in and she immediately sat down next to me.  I was so relieved because at least I would not be alone.Throughout the whole course, whenever the boys around would talk tech stuff we didn’t understand, we would look at each other and think, “Should we know this?” We became good friends, always helping each other out since the guys didn’t really want to talk to us either.

I remember my friend had an 85 in the course and still thought that she wasn’t “good” at computer science. She was doing better than most the people in the class! 

I had a 92 (which I would later learn was one of the highest grades) but the boys still acted as if they knew more. We had to do an assignment in pairs, and I was paired with this guy who - from the moment we started, I knew he thought he was better than me. On the first day, he went home and did the whole assignment at home without my input. He then preceded to spend class time on playing video games. Well, I went over his code, removed redundancies and made it more efficient. When I asked him I should hand in the assignment or he would do it, he said he’d do it. Turns out, instead of submitted my edited code, he submitted his original code. When we got the feedback, it was all things that I had changed in my version! Instead of being angry or explaining what had happened, I took the lower grade and wondered if I should continue to study computer science. 

There were countless times I thought I wasn’t good enough. Even in grade 12, when I was sure I wanted to major in cs, I took other science courses to “keep my options open”. The hardest thing I had to learn in grade 12 was how to be the only girl on the robotics team. There was a robotics event where this girl from my school walked up to me and asked, “You’re on the robotics team?” I replied and said I was. She proceeded to tell me how she wanted to be an engineer and join the team as well but she was intimidated by all the boys. I tried to encourage her to join and tell her it was worth it, but alas I never did see her again.

I don’t have a lot of experience in computer science. But the little experience that I do have has shown me that girls are hard on themselves. When they see other girls aren’t doing something, they’re not likely to do it themselves. Heck, I wouldn’t be studying computer science if I did see all those sites and organizations encouraging girls to code. If I hadn’t joined Tumblr and met other girls in cs. That’s why I try to encourage and help every girl that I meet. 

Thanks for tagging me and sorry for taking so long answering :)

Well, I’ve always liked technology. I’ve been fond of computers from a very young age. My mom always told me I should study something related to computers because, according to her, handling them came natural to me. I never really listened to her because I thought that handling computers came naturally to everyone my age, so I thought my skills were nothing special. I just knew basic stuff like Word and how to use a computer since I hadn’t been introduced to programming or the REAL use of computers. I didn’t even know Linux was a thing until a year ago.

I fell in love with computer science 2 years ago in my Informatics class. I only learned the basic basics of C but got really into it. After that I signed up for computer science classes, where I learned what computers were really for. I fell in love with coding and the way you can create anything out of basic structures. It’s the closest thing we have to magic, really. Coding is the only thing that really keeps me going. I can suffer with a bug for hours and still go at it. It is something that even when i find hardships I don’t mind them because I really enjoy it.

(Also asked by @curiosityandcode, thank you both! ♥)

I’ve liked technology and computer science since I was a kid but I never thought about study something related to it. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a vet or a surgeon. It wasn’t until I was 15-16 (my fourth year of high school) when I took a robotic class, lots of things happened and I fell in love with it. It wasn’t only because I really loved what we did there, but also because it was the only place in high school where I felt a bit safe. There we learned to do robots from scratch and to program them with Visual Basic (I hate VB now, btw). Then, next year my robotics teacher asked me if I wanted to help him to start a robotics club in our high school. Obviously, I said yes.