Thread by @polotek

Doing something with math or engineering was drilled into me from a young age. This was before "STEM" became the word of the day.

In college, all majors had to take intro to computer science. I found I had an aptitude for it. Not much more to it than that.

https://twitter.com/kapehe_ok/status/1465355637487910922

Like a lot of people, I didn't have a "passion". I always wanted to be a writer of some kind. But it takes a lot of work to create a career from that. And I was honestly too lazy. Didn't have that kind of initiative. I was hoping for a good job that paid well.

I didn't know anything about computers until my senior year in high school. But the more I poked around with one, it struck me as something that required a lot of skills and education. And where I come from, that means more money. So it seemed like a reasonable career bet.

I started majoring in computer engineering. Which starts out teaching you about hardware and circuitry. I was pretty bored by all of that. (I'm not a very good student).

But the compsci class was cool. It struck a chord with me pretty early as something I could stick with.

My second year, I switched majors to computer science. The rest of my college career was spent trying to dodge other pre-requisites so I could take more major courses. Don't do that btw. My entire last year was nothing but pre-reqs. Brutal.

Technically it was all majors within the school of engineering. Which at Georgia Institute of Technology means almost all majors.

https://twitter.com/segdeha/status/1465508880629186561?t=P6ySS1wO-o2nH_2qt7nEyA&s=19

Computer Science 1101 was the course they used to weed out the stragglers. It was 150 freshmen per class. And they did that thing where they told you to look to your left and your right. One out of 3 people wouldn't make it through the course.

They weren't kidding either. People were dropping like flies. When I say I had an aptitude, I mean it was hard but I was able to figure it out. For a lot of people, it never clicked. I believe CompSci at Georgia Tech was a huge barrier for people trying to get into STEM fields.

I didn't understand it that way at that age obviously. When you're young, you just accept how institutions work because you don't know any better. But Georgia Tech was incredibly elitist and exclusionary in hindsight. By the time I left that school I hated it.