Readit NewsAll engineers I know who worth their salt acquired their skills mostly through self-education and lot of practice, and the process was gender-independent. I don't think 'boys-are-not-allowed' classes will put any of the participants closer to professional careers in coding.
Is teaching in this subject also (sic) "absolutely dominated by female"? I doubt it. It's also an incredible amount of work to organize something like this. Kudos to anyone, regardless of gender, who takes this kind of thing on.
I have two little girls. When they're a bit older, I hope some motivated individual is around to put on an event like this for them. If not, maybe that person will be me. :)
http://www.oecd.org/std/37964549.pdf
FEMALE DOMINATED OCCUPATIONS IN 20 OECD COUNTRIES, Women to Men Ratio
Pre-primary Education Teaching Associate Professionals 14.5:1
Primary Education Teaching Associate Professionals 6.2:1
Special Education Teaching Professionals 5.6:1
Primary and Pre-primary Education Teaching 5.3:1
> It's also an incredible amount of work to organize something like this.
I never said it was simple or unneeded.
'Just go to Reading' was exactly my point. In order to save enough for a basic housing in London, my quality of life have to drop significantly for years to come. Yet I'm considered to be 'rich' by HMRC. (Practically, this'd mean switching schools for one of my children, and waiting forever for free timeslots in nearby nurseries for another - while saving maybe extra £5-6k/y in rent, which is peanuts when counting towards possible mortgage).
Avg. house prices in my current ward are ~$750-900k for a 3bd terrace. That's ten years of my net income - and you don't have to work for that! Just sell a house you bought 15 years ago for a fraction of this cost - and here you go. Sure, you'd have to rent - just as I do. Yet, all those people are not considered to be wealthy (and they aren't, with many of them struggling with today's job market), and not taxed on the wealth they hold.
So, for me - it's all about taxation and government imposed incentives. If they want to put a leash on a younger britons generation and then pass it to Chinese landlords - they're on the right track.
Changing taxation alone can drastically shift the power balance between landlords and tenants to ease underlying supply-demand issue.
I live in a somewhat rundown area, just outside zone 1. The rent is expensive, but not unmanageable. I have flatmates; the area feels safe; its close enough to bus and tube lines that getting around is simple. I live fairly frugally otherwise. I don't at all feel like I can't afford to live in the city, and I can't imagine having the access to the range and depth of culture and social events anywhere else.
Maybe it's that I don't have any interest in buying a home, but I feel like so much of this doesn't apply to me. Maybe it's also that I moved here from Dublin, another very expensive city, that I don't feel like it's so bad.
It's a good place to spend one's youth though.
Thought of buying a 2bd flat recently, but it'll take us two years of struggling for every extra penny to just get a mortgage for a very moderate £250k place.
Income means nothing in this city. Either you got your housing issue settled 15 years ago using 'right to buy' or some other form of government housing subsidies, or you somehow generate wealth on a side (obviously, not through the salary, as even £200k/y doesn't seems to be close enough), or you are going to rent until you loose your source of income (i.e. due to old age) - and then you'd probably die on a street.
An economy of landlords drawing the money from their own kids. In a few decades all that accumulated wealth will be probably burned away on anti-cancer treatments, and then heavily taxed and rented younger generation will just quit on trying to build a welfare state, throwing their lives away only to provide a comfort living for older people. Hope our grand-kids will be at least able to start from blank.
You might browse through current London's startup needs.
Its related to the validity of your "observation", in that, if teaching to code is not a female-dominated activity, your "observation" that she chose a female-dominated activity is false.
> All engineers I know who worth their salt acquired their skills mostly through self-education and lot of practice, and the process was gender-independent
Oh, well, if we are going to do dueling anecdotes, all programmers (even if including that population within engineers is proper, there are a lot of engineers outside of that group, and I'm not talking about them, since this is about teaching coding, not teaching engineering in some general sense) worth their salt I know started by being taught by someone -- usually in school or a similar environment, though sometimes tutoring by a family member with experience in the field played a similar role -- at a fairly young age, and then, after developing an interest there, proceeded to choose further education -- both guided and autodidactic -- and lots of practice.
Well, if you insist on reductio at absurdum, let's continue on. Teaching to code in gilrs-only classes is obviously not a male-dominated activity, would you agree on that?
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This side of the pond, it's fun to observe how Americans try to integrate minorities into bigger groups. The usual tools are: "positive discrimination", ban on open discussion and general patronising attitude on the side of a majority. Because that worked just oh so well with racial minorities.
Last thing women need is your 'knight in the shiny armour' stance toward them. Just treat them as equals, and they'll beat you in your own game once interested enough. It's that easy.
(And, yes, I'm a married man; a father of a beautiful, independent and ambitious daughter; and a hiring manager, with 100% women applicants being hired so far: for being great engineers, albeit a bit unconfident, hence only applying when absolutely sure they're up for the job).