From: julie@cucbs.chem.columbia.edu (Julie Wright)
Subject: Re: women in engineering etc. + Bonus! Sexist Incident!
Organization: Center for Biomolecular Simulation, Department of Chemistry,
	Columbia University
	<JULIE.92Sep8225410@cucbs.chem.columbia.edu> <6ksn7t+@lynx.unm.edu>
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 18:54:57 GMT

In article <6ksn7t+@lynx.unm.edu> bevans@carina.unm.edu (Mathemagician) writes:

>In article <JULIE.92Sep8225410@cucbs.chem.columbia.edu> Julie Wright writes:
>>3) The requirement is necessary to meet in the end, but it is harder for
>>some people to meet it than others, and there is no purpose to screening
>>people out early if they can eventually meet it.  For example, if it were a
>>general problem that girls were steered away from high school higher math
>>classes, it would probably be possible for them and their colleges to make
>>up for this later, and directing efforts in this direction would help 
>>increase the number of qualified science/math majors, say.  On the other
>>hand, if a college required entering, uh, y'know, those new students,
>>to have already had calculus if they were to be considered for a science
>>major, a lot of women would be knocked out right there.  Note that this
>>is all a hypothetical, although I believe it is a reasonable example.

>This sort of gets into the constant student complaint of, "Why am I
>taking this class?  I'm never going to need it!"

>For instance, your last example comes to mind.  I *do* believe that
>Calculus should be a required course before being accepted into a
>"hard science" major program.  Why?  It's real hard not to use
>Calculus at some point in chemistry, physics, biology, or engineering
>(obviously, you have to know calculus for a mathematics degree.)

>Harvey Mudd College has changed their curriculum to one that assumes
>the freshmen have already had first-year Calculus (or, under the old
>system, first semester).  

[description of H.M. College requirements; suggestion that later classes
might be easier to "make up"]

	I probably should have made my example clearer.  I certainly 
didn't mean to imply that calculus should be skipped entirely.  I just
meant that although some students have finished a standard calculus
(one variable!) class by the time they hit college, others have not, and
at many colleges, it would be quite possible to start math classes at
the calculus level, then crank later.  This depends on just how many course
requirements there are, how many classes the student takes, etc.  What
I meant was, if the college argues that anyone who has not already finished
calculus by the time they hit college simply isn't smart enough to do certain
things, and therefore should not be allowed to major in certain fields,
then the student won't be *allowed* to *try* to catch up.
	I was probably influenced by my own experiences in coming up with
that example, although I wasn't consciously thinking of my own life.  I
grew up fascinated with math and at the top of my classes every year.  Most
of the time, I assumed I'd be a mathematician.  Until I hit 12th grade,
that is, when I took calculus.  Disaster struck (or so it seemed at the
time).  The teacher stressed repeatedly that we were now doing REAL, HIGHER
math, unlike that baby stuff we'd been doing before, which was basically
just arithmetic.  And somehow I just couldn't do it.  He gave us weekly
quizzes, and I was getting 0's and 1's out of 16.  My answers weren't even
worth partial credit, apparently.  I figured I wasn't smart at math after
all... only arithmetic.  There was an anomaly at the midterm: I got the
high score again.  But see, the midterm was a standardized exam (basically
the questions were taken from the Advanced Placement natl. exams), so
everyone (including me) argued that I had only done well because I was a 
"good test taker": in fact, my knowledge of calculus was still assumed
by everyone to be quite limited.
	Well, the midterm perked me up a little, but after another month
or so of 0's and 1's on the quizzes, my enthusiasm was at an all-time low,
and I really hated that class.  It started to look as if I, the valedictorian
of the class, was going to get a C in calculus (which, in fact, I did in
the end), or worse.  I'd been being sulky for a month or so, talking about
how much I hated the class, but I got scared at the bad grades.  It was
probably all my fault after all ... and it was certainly true I wasn't
working as hard as I normally did in my classes.  So I humbled myself and
asked to speak privately with the teacher.  He said sure, so I launched
into a little speech about how I knew I was behind, hadn't been doing
very well, etc. and I really wanted his advice in how I could catch up
and do better.  He let me wind down, nodding while I spoke, until I ran
out of mea culpas.  Then he said in a kindly, thoughtful voice, "You
know, I was just thinking.  You're a very pretty girl."  I was way out
of my league on that one (remember, I was 17!).  I couldn't even talk
for a minute.  He added, "Oh, you don't have to be scared -- you just
don't seem very aware of it, and I thought you should know."  When I
could get my breath I just said, "Well... anyway... um... could you tell
me which chapters I should do more work in?" or something like that,
and he said dismissively, "Oh, just do the homework, you'll be fine."
	Well, I was lucky enough to grow up with parents who'd made me
aware of sexism and that they thought it was wrong, so by now I was pretty
sure there was something fishy going on here.  (I forgot to add that *all*
the girls did badly in his classes, and that when he lectured, he only
looked at the boys.)  I went out and indignantly told one of my friends
(another girl doing pretty badly in the class) about this whole episode.
She said, "Oh, come on, he was just being nice."  I tried to explain that
I knew he *thought* he was being nice, but I'd gone in there for help
on math and he hadn't given me any.  She basically didn't want to consider
that he could have been sexist.  I went to my father, who was a teacher
at the school and knew the other teacher quite well.  He looked really
uncomfortable but said, again, that he probably didn't mean any harm, etc.
See, this teacher was a really great guy in a lot of ways.  He was quirky,
he was funny, he was clever, he was kind.  None of us wanted to acknowledge
what seems quite clear to me in retrospect, but what I backed down from
attacking at the time: his sexism.  I think he honestly didn't know he
was causing me harm by assuming that if I knew I was pretty, it really 
didn't matter what grade I got in calculus.
	I went to college and thought about skipping math entirely, but
I had this vague plan to major in chemistry and I knew I'd need calculus,
so I thought I'd better take it quickly in the pass-fail semester, since
I knew I'd do badly.  I took the placement exam and placed out of the first
semester of calc, so I still had to do the second.  The man who taught
it had a wonderful, soothing style and I quit feeling so anxious and 
realized I loved this stuff, even if I was stupid at it.  So I worked at it
and got an A (which I considered miraculous).  I didn't take any math the
next semester, since I could take a breather, so by sophomore year, I'd
only finished first-year calculus and was still convinced I was lousy at
"higher math".  To make a long story short(er), I had to keep taking some
math for my chem. requirements, and when I had to choose a major, I felt
so inadequate at everything I thought I'd better pick two majors so I
could drop whichever one I screwed up at worse.  My boyfriend at the time
convinced me to double major in chem and math -- the math major simply
wouldn't have occurred to me, and he more or less bullied me into it.
Suddenly, the next two years, everything fell into place.  I ended up
keeping both majors because I liked them both, and I did well in both of
them.  In fact, I did *better* at my math major, but I just couldn't see
myself doing math as a career, so I ended up in chemistry.  (It's not 
quite a happy ending yet, but I still can't imagine I should have continued
in math, although I love it.)
	So, in short, I suppose that even though I'd had calculus in high
school, by the end of freshman year I really hadn't gotten very far in
math for a potential major.  I was very lucky that nobody gave me too
much of a hard time about it (they may have figured I'd drop it and
do just chem, which certainly seemed likely) and they just let me catch
up.  And I was also really lucky that my professors (all male, in both
subjects, except one, out of 18-20 classes in math and chem) treated me
with respect for my intelligence, since my self-confidence was quite 
fragile (still is, probably).  If anyone had told me sophomore year,
"Look, you just haven't proven yourself in math.  Go major in something
else," I would have done it without a fight.  But, obviously, they would
have been wrong, at that college at that time.  Close call...

>Brian Evans

---Julie 


-- 
I wonder why it is that when I plan a route too carefully it goes to pieces,
whereas if I blunder along in blissful ignorance aimed in a fancied direction
I get through with no trouble.
				--- John Steinbeck (Travels with Charley)