I am Priya, an Engineer by Profession - My LinkedIn profile is here http://www.linkedin.com/in/ganapriya
A Monday morning, after a nice and sunny, rested weekend here in Saratoga. I am catching up my news sipping my coffee. Not sure which link that I clicked on, it brought me to a news article, where Jocelyn Goldfein, the director of Engineering at Facebook has talked about women in Tech and the challenges at the workplaces etc. So, am now intrigued by her profile clicked on her LinkedIn profile to see if I could email her to share some of the common things that I had felt from that article. Since she is not my first connection on LinkedIn, it had asked me to upgrade my account, where at that point, I don't click on that link anymore and move away from it. But, I saw the 'send us a tip' link on HuffingtonPost and I was feeling like 'may be I should send a tip'!
'Women in Tech' in general is a topic that peeks my attention all the time and am inspired by so many of my Engineering friends and acquaintances. All of them are women holding Director of Engineering positions or Senior Engineers at different organizations. I am originally from India and came to the U.S. in 1995 to pursue my Masters in Computer Science. In fact, to be honest, being from India, I never even knew that 'Women in Tech and their challenges' is even a topic to be discussed about, since most of my friends were/are Engineers. But, now that am in a phase in my life where I have 2 boys at the elementary school and getting the scoop from a lot of parents around whose kids are in the middle schools and high schools and interacting with a lot of my friends who have changed their profession after being in Engineering, I could see to some extent of what's going on and hoping to contribute some of my ideas and efforts in making the world a better in this sector for women.
One thing that I commonly notice or have been noticing over the number of years is the amount of women Engineers from India who are in the US in Software Development and quality assurance (QA). They are here in the U.S through several means. Some of them came to the U.S. for their Masters in Engineering and some came here directly for employment through their direct employer or some through the consulting companies. And seeing more and more and more of them in and around most of the tech companies in the valley. And that made me think and question about it. Why are there so many women, especially from India in tech? And possibly from China and other countries as well (which I haven't experienced and so I wouldn't talk about). Here is the scene in India even today and that's how it was 15 years ago when I was in India and 20 some years ago when my older brother went to an Engineering college. Math and Science is in the core curriculum from the elementary school, is carried all the way through the middle school and then translates into the high school curriculum. Some things that were missing in most schools was the creative writing, art etc. May be we could leave that aside for this discussion. Until the ninth grade, atleast for me, I didn't have to think that Math/Science are special subjects. I loved Math all along. All the craziness of getting into colleges for the bachelors start from the 10th grade onwards. Then everyone's attention is all about Math, Physics, Chemistry (famously called as the MPC) and Biology since the aspirations of all of the dads and moms of the kids going into colleges are either towards being a doctor or an Engineer. My dad who himself was into Education (a principal of a high school) wanted me to be a doctor, although I had my inner fear of leaving Math if I were to go into medicine. Thank god! I didn't get into Medicine and got an admission into a fairly a decent Engineering college. Ofcourse, like in any other part of the world, the competition is fierce and there was a great sense of relief once I got the admission. The reason that am mentioning about this path is that it was just inculcated into the system that we didn't have to think about Math and Science as tough or different optional subjects. And ofcourse, there are pluses and minuses there that you didn't have to think about it!
It is fascinating and interesting to me to read about some of the articles about 'Women in Tech'. But I see it for real everyday in different scenarios. I have walked into a 40 people group, full of male Engineers when I was back at Borland where we were into developing distributed systems. My boss around that time who is a fabulous person and I was so lucky to have him as my boss who has 2 daughters himself, came to me a week after and told me in one of the conversations that - "Hey, did you realize that you were the only women there? - And, I was like, yeah! never thought about that! Now, when we go to birthday parties, I could easily come across different students who are girls commenting about their intimidating 'Math' tests that they need to take the next day.
One of the main ways in my mind to change in this perception around Engineering and Math for young girls starting from elementary schools - is to inculcate the love of Math, the love of programming, the love of Enigneering right from the earlier grades. After all, in my mind programming is an art. You need a different eye for it. Good programming is definitely an art. If it is not done in a proper way, your system could go out of hand. Am learning more and more of that everyday and hoping to lead by example. And hoping to contribute to this sector more and more, since that's what I enoy doing!
