Women in Computer Science

For the first 21 years of my life, I did not know what I wanted to be when I grew up, but I knew I did not want to be a programmer. I thought that if I was a programmer I would have to gain 100 pounds, wear shirts with green sweat stains, grow my hair out long, and play online, fantasy multi-player games. The recent articles in class have suggested that this image of programmers is a large reason women do not enter the field of computer science. While I agree with this, I believe that it extends to men as well. I feel that many people do not join this industry because they do not want to be a "nerd." Programmers however, have the same interests as anyone else. In fact, no one is just a programmer. They are accountants, event planners, artists, or musicians who write programs. I believe that in the future there will be more people who understand this. They will come to realize, as I did, that programming is not about junk food and video games, it is being integrated into everything that we do. So to any non-programmer reading this, choose what you like to do, and figure out how programming enables you to do that. Hopefully this motivates you to investigate how to code up what you like to do. As more people do this, more people will join the computer revolution, including women.