I was wondering about the gender ratios in classes like computer science as well as other sciences such as physics and mathematics. At my high school there were hardly any girls the upper levels of these classes - only two in AP Physics and none in AP Computer Science. Is it the same way at Rice?
The gender ratio in CS for my year (2018) is about 1 girl for every 3 guys. So it’s not fantastic, but still better than some other majors. (Electrical engineering has about…10 female sophomore majors. Not an exaggeration.)
Yeah coming from a high school with a math, science, technology magnet, I was impressed with the number of girls. I think Rice CS is less of a boys club because it is more just smart people who enjoy math and analytical thinking rather than a bunch of greasy boys who are maybe too into computers. That’s obviously an exaggeration and I’m not aiming to offend anyone because I had friends who were really into computers and stuff, some of whom were pretty greasy, and a lot of them were very nice. But it kind of highlights the difference in atmosphere. The CS curriculum doesn’t really care if you are coming in never having coded or if you put together your own computer when you were 10. Also I don’t want to accidentally misrepresent myself so I’m a white male for context.
Also there’s a great “women in computer science” club called CSters (http://csters.cs.rice.edu/) that organizes fun events for members like special talks from Google, etc. They also pay for some members to go to the Grace Hopper Women in Computer Science Conference, which is sweet because that conference is crazy expensive.
I am a woman computer scientist (though I majored in EE at Rice). I found the Rice environment very supportive. I think the supportive environment makes Rice a great place for women in engineering (CS is in the engineering school at Rice, though I guess at other schools it falls under natural sciences).
I had close relationships with the college RAs and associates, and their support really helped me through some of the rougher times I had in college. I actually considered leaving engineering after a really bad internship (SOOO glad I didn’t), but after a really long heart-to-heart with one of the EE profs, I reconsidered and stuck with it. I can’t imagine undergrads get this much support at many other schools.
Also, the overall gender ratio at Rice is balanced and it is easy to meet people outside your major. Though I had a few close female friends in EE, I had many close relationships with amazing, bright women outside of EE. Now I am in grad school and in a very large CS department. I have virtually no female friends in the CS department here (though I have lots of great male colleagues and many of my friends from undergrad are close by). I deeply miss having lots of girlfriends around, and am glad I went to a school where I could easily find friends outside my very male dominated field.