A bit but still interesting

In my search to find out about women in physics, google has few suggestions from the past year or two. I did find an interesting About.com article by Andrew Zimmermen Jones  which cites a book, The trouble with Physics, by Lee Smolin

There is heated debate among physicists over why there are not more women or blacks in physics, compared with other fields just as challenging, such as mathematics or astronomy. I believe the answer is simple: blatant prejudice. Anyone who has served, as I have, on decades of hiring committees and hasn't seen naked prejudice in action is either blind to it or dishonest.

 The comments were interesting. The one that struck me the most was about high school counsellors not suggesting physics to girls who are good in the math and sciences. I remember meeting with my counsellor as required at the beginning of senior year. I was in the top 10% of my class and had a 3.85 GPA. I was in the 90th percentile in the SATs, had taken AP calculus, and was in science olympia. I was already planning on going to college for physics and then going into grad school from there. My counsellor suggested that I think about maybe attending a 4 year college. When I told him that I was planning to go on to grad school he just sat there and ended our meeting early. I'm still unsure why he didn't say that I should really be planning to go to a 4 year program, and then suggest that depending on what I was going to major in think about grad school as well. I feel sorry for all the other girls he probably told the same thing to who then questioned if they really were smart enough for college.

This isn't the first time I've heard of high school counsellors turning girls off from going into math and science, and I really don't think the counsellors mean any harm. I truly believe that they feel they are doing their best to help these girls. I also believe that it just never occurs to them that these girls might not only enjoy a degree in the math and sciences, but that they might excel at it.

When I told my physics teacher what the counsellor had told me, he first laughed and then told me that I better go on to grad school and started listing off places that I might like and should keep in mind as I went through my BS degree. I was lucky, I had a great teacher who really pushed and supported me, he still does on a regular basis. I had an amazing father who was excited about my interests and went out of his way to study what I was interested in so that we could discuss it. I had a mother who was more than happy to take on the school and make sure that I got to take the science and math classes that I wanted to. I'm not sure I would be where I am today without them, I just wonder how many more women might be in the sciences and especially physics if they all had the support I received.

Please feel free to share any stories you might have had about how you got into the math and sciences, or why you maybe didn't.

- a women in physics -