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Girls vs. Boys

Hey, I am looking at Software Engineering courses to start in 2008, and I was wondering if anyone knows the boy to girl ratio in these kind of computing degrees. If you don't know exactly, maybe you could make a guess. Please :smile:

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Thanks,

Laura xxx

Reply 1

Psyk

Girls are very outnumbered. On my course it's about 10:1. Don't let that put you off, it's not like you'll only make friends with people on your course.

Reply 2

loopymeg

Yeah, I'd say that 10:1 is a reasonable guess. Don't let it put you off though, because the guys are normally great, and you'll make plenty of female friends outside of your course :smile:

Reply 3

Hedger

Agreed, I haven't gone Uni yet, but there's 2 girls in my BTEC who've got plenty of friends outside the course (Yet, my computing is all-male unfortunately, but there's a few in the other class.). I'd only assume you'd have more female friends in Uni because you need to take into account being able to ask for All-Female roommates - or something like that, can't you choose what type of person you want in your room? Like some sort of filter system decising who goes with who on what they've asked for? :s

Reply 4

JennLlama

I'd agree with the 10:1 estimate, though it'll vary a bit. My course (Computer Systems Engineering) had 3 girls out of about 50 people on the course (I'm now the only one out of 18 for our final year) and the Computer Science degrees I guess had a comparable number. I really wouldn't let it worry you though because I've still got plenty of friends on my course and you'll make a lot of friends through halls and clubs & societies, where you'll probably have a more even mix of male and female.
@ loadmalz: The majority of rooms in university accommodation don't require you to share at all - you can often request to be on a single-sex corridor and I think most places where you do have a roommate will keep it single-sex.
Jenn xx

Reply 5

'burger

On my course we had 9 girls and probs about 60-70 boys. It was never an issue for me however. The boys were all really nice and as there were so few girls we kind of stuck together. On the plus point, as there were so few of us, everyone knew who all the girls were so when you started group projects etc you never had to introduce yourself. It was also a bit like having 50 older brothers (and maybe 10 younger ones that required mothering! :rolleyes:

)

Also at my university the school had in place a kind of society for girls in comp sci(but it was done within the school instead of as a proper university society). It generally involved coffee meetings and trips to megabowl etc but every so often the school used to buy us pizza(which the boys were always jealous of altho we always offered them the left overs!). They are also currently setting up a mentor scheme so the girls in 3rd and 4th year of comp sci will be mentors to the first and second years who will then go on to be mentors themselves. This is kind of what the society is in place for anyway but will give people a specific non-staff contact when they first start. I think some other universities will also have this sort of thing in place but if the university you choose to attend doesn't then you could always try to set something like it up. It means that even if there are only a few girls its always easy to find at least one person in the labs for a girly chat.

Reply 6

loopymeg

'burger

Also at my university the school had in place a kind of society for girls in comp sci(but it was done within the school instead of as a proper university society). It generally involved coffee meetings and trips to megabowl etc but every so often the school used to buy us pizza(which the boys were always jealous of altho we always offered them the left overs!). They are also currently setting up a mentor scheme so the girls in 3rd and 4th year of comp sci will be mentors to the first and second years who will then go on to be mentors themselves. This is kind of what the society is in place for anyway but will give people a specific non-staff contact when they first start. I think some other universities will also have this sort of thing in place but if the university you choose to attend doesn't then you could always try to set something like it up. It means that even if there are only a few girls its always easy to find at least one person in the labs for a girly chat.

To be honest, that doesn't sound very good to me. I'd much prefer to have socials that included everyone, not just the girls on the course - especially since it would be a bit dead because there's only the 2 of us!
We've arranged our own socials and found that they work really well, and it means that everyone gets a chance to meet people. I don't see why girls should get any special treatment just because we're a minority :s-smilie:

Reply 7

'burger

There are socials for everyone too :smile:

Reply 8

loopymeg

But still, why should the girls get a special social? Unless you've forgotten to mention that the boys get the same treatment, I think it's quite unfair.

Reply 9

'burger

Because the girls took the time to arrange it. It was all set up and organised by a female postgrad, not the staff. She arranged everything and persuaded the school to support it by passing on all the details, via email, to all the girls in the school. If the boys took the time I'm pretty sure they would be provided with support to. They've just never bothered to do it.

Reply 10

bbq

The point isn't having a social cos girls are a minority, its more to provide support for them. The social aspect is getting to know other females throughout the school who may be in a different year but have been in a similar situation. Pizza is good but finding a mentor or making a friend is the main purpose.

As for having socials for everyone, that's a great idea. Me and 'burger both experienced that altho we made a handful of really good friends early on, it wasn't until 3rd yr group projects when we finally "interacted" with the remaining 80% of the year. and that's something that everyone would have benifitted from years earlier.

Reply 11

loopymeg

You see that's where we seem to do things slightly differently. All of our socials are arranged by students, and we make sure that everyone is invited. The result of these socials is that we get to "interact" with the entire year, and also, we've found that the girls get a lot of support from the boys (and vice versa). I dread to think how many "big brothers" I've gained this year :rolleyes:

Reply 12

Leigh

My course, at York, has approximately 10 girls to about 120 males I think.
But like others have said, don't let that put you off, you'll make way more friends outside your course than on it. I find that to be the case in everything except subjects like Music which are very interpersonal.

Reply 13

Computer_Dude

Does these only happen with Com Eng or every computing course in general?

Reply 14

Waldo Dobbs

01yaoos

Does these only happen with Com Eng or every computing course in general?

Computing, Maths and Physics really: most of the mathematical and physical sciences will have many more males to females. That said, the gender imbalance wasn't as noticeable for Chemistry at my university.

If it interests you, you shouldn't let it put you off. Being a woman certainly won't hurt your prospects of getting your first job: companies in the financial and technological sectors are always offering initiatives and career events to get more women/minority ethnic groups/homosexuals to work for them in order to increase the diversity of their workforce and bring different styles of thinking and backgrounds to their companies.