The Girl in Computer Science: a Google Success Story

There's plenty of talk about the need to support women in tech, and in particular math and science education for girls as they move from middle school into junior high.

But for at least one high profile woman in technology -- there's a reasonable argument to be made that education should be 'blind' to gender.

To understand where this comes from, you have to hear her story.

Last week at the 92nd Street Y, Marissa Mayer kept a packed house glued to the story of how a young girl growing up in Wisconsin could be essentially a 'geek' while at the same time being on the dance squad.

Mayer grew up in Wausau Wisconsin, a city of 40,000 about 3 1/2 hours northwest of Milwaukee. She was one of the top debaters at Wausau West High School. But she joined the dance squad as well -- a geeky teenager who wanted to show that cheerleaders could be smart.

But Mayer is quick to point out that all through high school, her achievements were never characterized as 'good for a girl.' In fact, she is quite sure that being treated as a student, even a very smart student, rather than as the unusual girl who's good at math and science, was critical in her success.

She went from Wausau to Stanford University, thinking that her future was in medicine. But after returning home for a break, she compared her chem and bio class work with her peers, and realized she wasn't getting anything different than they were in various pre-med programs. She went back to Stanford looking for something unique, where she could excel and get an extraordinary education. She found herself drawn to Symbolic Systems -- and ended up getting both her B.S. and M.S. in Computer Science from Stanford University, specializing in artificial intelligence.

If being a girl in CS at Stanford was hard, Mayer says she didn't really remember. In fact, it wasn't until she read the student newspaper one day, that it became clear that others DID notice her for more than her brains.

"There was this columnist at The Stanford Daily that I really liked. One day she wrote this column about campus icons, meaning people you recognize but you don't know their name, like the crazy guy in the plaza who yells at you when you bike past him. So she had this list, and I was reading through her column and kind of chuckling to myself about these people, and then there was someone on the list that was 'the blonde woman in the upper-level division computer science classes.' And I was like, 'Who is that?' And then I'm like, "Oh, it's me!" so I guess I realized at that point that I was somewhat unusual."

So, for Mayer -- looking at the world without the filter of gender was an important part of her excelling on her own terms. She says it may be better not to ask the question: is this student a girl or a boy.

"Asking the question, I worry, sometimes can handicap progress," she said. "I lived in a bubble. I was really good at chemistry and biology [growing up]. No one ever said, 'Wow, you're really good at this for a girl."

"If I felt more self-conscious about being a woman it would have stifled me more."

That said, Mayer is clearly proud of the fact that Google has more female engineers than many of the companies in the Valley. More than 20% at this point. But she's clearly not hiring based on a quota or a goal. At Google, she just wants the very smartest people who are willing to work very very hard.

 

 

 

Follow Steve Rosenbaum on Twitter: www.twitter.com/magnify

Comments

[Spram]

07:16 PM on 04/04/2012

Girls don't like nerd stuff.

[scoobs316]

04:53 PM on 04/02/2012

I have always loved and excelled at math and science. I grew up in a very good school district where there were plenty of other girls in these classes - all the way up through AP Physics and Calculus my Senior year of HS. Things changed after that - I asked my fellow classmates what they'd study in college. I was the only one planning to study Engineering - the rest of my female classmates were planning to go into other fields like pre-Med and law. When I got to college, I ended up studying Physics for my B.S. and I was the only female in my year. There was one other a year ahead of me. THAT's when I really felt like a minority. If anything it motivated me to do my best and prove I could do it. I studied engineering in grad school and was the only American female in the entire department -- there were handful of female Asian international students. Again - didn't let it bother me and fought on. I've now worked for 12 years in Engineering and it's very lopsided. There are a handful of women, but very few up into management. I sat in a very important management meeting last week and actually counted: 43 men, 2 women (not managers) who were from a different department, and myself. I wouldn't say it bothers me or holds me back, but I am definitely not blind to it.

[Andie Marshall]

08:44 AM on 04/02/2012

Nice story but a bit immature and ignorant of context. It's great for the top 20% are so to work their way through as she did, but for team USA, I think it would be more advantageous to boost access to and training in all fields vital to our future. The fact is, particularly in immigrant communities, the girls are all too often trapped in circa 1970s pre Title IX bubble. We need to take a holistic view of America fostering healthy competition to the betterment of us all. And for those who are quick to sneer, think of this, many of the innovations developed by those from working class and immigrant members of our country may well give us a major strategic advantage in the developing markets.

[Climate Lurker]

08:03 AM on 04/02/2012

I chose chemistry because it was interesting and because, at least in my school, over half the chem students were female and half the professors too. I wasn't aware of the huge difference in numbers between men and women until I went to an ACS convention to give a talk, and there were almost NO women, except us girls from my school. So I was blind to it too. I wonder if I would have chosen a more 'traditional' female role if the male:female ratio had been more reflective of the wider chemistry world? I suspect so. Thankfully that wasn't the case!

[JustMeinNJ]

07:15 AM on 04/02/2012

BS Comp Sci '91 - female. One of only 3 in my classes. At the time I didn't question what I was doing - I just enjoyed the fact that all my classes were full of young men.
I didn't notice that my gender was an issue until working in the real world. Especially in IT it is rare to see women in Senior Level IT positions. Programming level - an even split I'd say - but not at the top.

[Brogrammer]

04:47 AM on 04/02/2012

In other countries, this isn't a problem. Some of the first computer programmers in the states were female. Her sign-on bonus was over a million dollars. The next time I hear about unfair pay, I will reference the tech sector and this example(as most of the stat examples are from nursing, a typically female profession). Kuddos to her for telling the truth about her situation, and not blaming a difficult journey on being female. Sometimes people confuse difficulty with discrimination, and I'm glad she was smart enough to see past it. What a class act.