In college, I took a computer programming class. It did not go well. Luckily, the professor was from another era and did not believe girls should be in the computer science field. (The college was only fifteen years into admitting women, and there were still some professors who did not agree with the change in enrollment policy. It’s hard to believe in 2017, but it is true.) The professor had no problem “helping” us during office hours, but because he did not believe us girls could actually complete computer programming, he’d ask a question and then immediately complete the work himself, not giving us enough wait time to stutter through an answer. No surprise, I did not learn any computer programming in that class. The professor assumed I couldn’t do it, and instead of even trying to teach me, he let me slide. Now, I was a college junior and was using Computer Science to replace the Calculus 2 requirement, so I was not going to make too much of a fuss about not learning to program. I regret my effort now. [Read more…]