Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!bellcore!rutgers!mailrus!uwmcsd1!ig!agate!caroline@polya.Stanford.EDU
From: caroline@polya.Stanford.EDU (Caroline A. Lambert)
Newsgroups: comp.society.women
Subject: Switching to Computing
Message-ID: <11905@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 10 Jul 88 23:01:02 GMT
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I do not have a humanities background. I have an MS in geophysics, and
lost my job as a geophysicist when I took a leave of absence to travel,
which unfortunately coincided with the crash in oil prices, at the
beginning of 1986. I naturally turned to computers as an alternate
occupation since  working with computers and writing programs was a
large part of my work as a geophysicist. After over 100 rejections to
applications, I came to the conclusion that the only way to break into
the field was to go back to school, which is where I am now, taking an
MS at Stanford. I am fortunate at least that my background allowed me to
jump right into their program, with the only undergrad courses I have to
make up being the computer science ones.

So how people from humanities backgrounds manage to make the switch is a
mystery to me. Could it be partly personality? I get the feeling some
people can sell themselves into anything, whereas others, like me tend to be somewhat
shy and are afflicted with that all-too-common problem among women, of
lacking confidence in their abilities, no matter how good they are. Maybe
it was because I was pregnant when I was job-hunting, but I
hope that didn't have anything to do with it. There is also the problem
that many of the companies where I live that hire scientific programmers
are defense companies, and I'm not a citizen. 

Now that I have some basic computer science courses under my belt,
finding a good summer job was never so easy. Perhaps I should leave you
with the impression that now I will live happily ever after, but that is
not the end of the story. I haven't finished my degree, but I'm pregnant
again...it's going to be tough. Sometimes I feel like a freak because I
have never met any other woman graduate student, in computer science or
any other science/engineering field, who has children. Am I really
crazy?

Caroline Lambert