Girls in Networking

Hey peeps,

I'm new here and looking forward to speaking with you all and learning lots of new tips - hi! Im looking to do Network+ before the end of the yr.

This may be a narrow minded question, but I only ask as I am the only female employed in my company in telecommunications, and when I enrolled for the Computer Science BSc, there werent many girls....I guess im just satisfying my curiosity here - are there any gals here doing the network+ course, and if so do u think there is a higher ratio of boys to girls in these (IT) fields?

Dont worry, im not a feminist (just a girl who loves shopping for shoes)

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NetworkingStudent

shoebot wrote: »

Hey peeps,

I'm new here and looking forward to speaking with you all and learning lots of new tips - hi! Im looking to do Network+ before the end of the yr.

This may be a narrow minded question, but I only ask as I am the only female employed in my company in telecommunications, and when I enrolled for the Computer Science BSc, there werent many girls....I guess im just satisfying my curiosity here - are there any gals here doing the network+ course, and if so do u think there is a higher ratio of boys to girls in these (IT) fields?

Dont worry, im not a feminist (just a girl who loves shopping for shoes)

I'm not a gal , but I belong to ACM and I occasionally get emails from this sub division of the ACM that promotes women in the IT feild. Check it out
ACM-W

chuckles

Welcome to the forum and good luck with the studies

! If you're starting now you should be able to get the N+ before the end of the year especially if you have some background experience. I did it in two months without any background

(but I'm also not working right now either

!)

PS I'm also not a girl!

erpadmin

shoebot wrote: »

Hey peeps,

I'm new here and looking forward to speaking with you all and learning lots of new tips - hi! Im looking to do Network+ before the end of the yr.

This may be a narrow minded question, but I only ask as I am the only female employed in my company in telecommunications, and when I enrolled for the Computer Science BSc, there werent many girls....I guess im just satisfying my curiosity here - are there any gals here doing the network+ course, and if so do u think there is a higher ratio of boys to girls in these (IT) fields?

Dont worry, im not a feminist (just a girl who loves shopping for shoes)

I also wish to extend my welcome and state I am also not a girl.

I can tell you that IT has stopped being an all-boy's club quite some time ago. I wouldn't even focus on your gender and instead concentrate more on your abilities. Whatever your gender is, it's all about aptitude. It's like the old bias that girls were worst than boys in math, or other subjects. I think we both know how true that is. (Yes, it's a complete crock for those wondering....

).

So whether or not there is a higher ratio of "boys to girls" in IT is really irrelevant. Just concentrate on your studies for the exam and continue to do what you need to do in IT (if IT is your intended career).

I wish you the best of luck.

Turgon

shoebot wrote: »

Hey peeps,

I'm new here and looking forward to speaking with you all and learning lots of new tips - hi! Im looking to do Network+ before the end of the yr.

This may be a narrow minded question, but I only ask as I am the only female employed in my company in telecommunications, and when I enrolled for the Computer Science BSc, there werent many girls....I guess im just satisfying my curiosity here - are there any gals here doing the network+ course, and if so do u think there is a higher ratio of boys to girls in these (IT) fields?

Dont worry, im not a feminist (just a girl who loves shopping for shoes)

A woman in networking? It's quite uncommon but welcome anyway. I remember Nethead on certifyexpress who worked in banking in London, we met once. There are also some fine lady writers, Galina Hildush (ATM), Radia Perlman, and many CCIEs.

Anyway. Welcome. Nice avatar.

Devilsbane

Not too many girls in networking that I have found, but that certainly doesn't say that they can't.

Good luck on your net+ and hopefully you will find TE a good home. (There is an entire forum for net+ where you can ask your questions and speak with others about the test.)

Mojo_666

Girls kick arse in IT project management IMO but not so good in the techie areas. Feel free to change my mind, but I have only ever met 1 girl who kicked arse as a techie but I have to say she was sh!t hot and well in the top 90% of people I have worked with.

msteinhilber

Mojo_666 wrote: »

Girls kick arse in IT project management IMO but not so good in the techie areas. Feel free to change my mind, but I have only ever met 1 girl who kicked arse as a techie but I have to say she was sh!t hot and well in the top 90% of people I have worked with.

Lets put it into perspective though. How many sub par men have you found to be not so good in technical fields yet you had to suffer through working with them anyways? I'm willing to wager there are a heck of a lot more men you didn't care to work with than there were women. It comes down to numbers really, women in IT are pretty rare although there does seem to be more and more women getting into this industry. Given women are so rare in the industry as it is, you're obviously not going to run into as many whom completely wow you with their skills - and the same would hold true for men if we were the minority in the industry.

My thoughts in general? There are a lot more workers in the industry whom a lot of us who participate in discussion here would consider below average than there are workers in the industry whom we would consider above average to exceptional. I believe the majority of us members here hold ourselves to higher standards as far as how much we personally invest into our career choice. Most of the members here I would wager feel that it is simply a fact of life within our chosen career path to invest more of oneself within their career. For each of us here who thinks this way, I bet there are a half dozen or more for each of us who don't think that way and get into the industry and become complacent. Overtime as technology continues to evolve, this complacency will eventually be hard to discern from plain ignorance because they have simply not kept up to pace with the industry.

Mojo_666

msteinhilber wrote: »

Lets put it into perspective though. How many sub par men have you found to be not so good in technical fields yet you had to suffer through working with them anyways?

Very few because they all get filtered out by the time they get to third line, but yes 1st line has some very dumb blokes, in fact 1st line is pretty much 90% crap 10% potential regardless of gender. However projects management seems to be where the ladies are really holding their own, so much in fact I cringe when I get a male PM.

These are my experiences, nothing more nothing less.

erpadmin

It's like male nurses, guys. The fact that I have to put "male" in front of that should tell you that guys are a minority in that field too. I'm not gonna lie to you though, I had my preconceptions about that, and I'm sure many people did, but they are just as capable as women are (and many of those preconceptions were not based on reality...pretty much like Meet the Parents/Faulkers). Same I suppose the same could be said for women doctors.

My whole thing is that gender-bias is really no longer an issue with me. I will not judge a female tech based on her gender, but on her skillset and competence. I worked with a couple and they were definitely "ok" in that regard. And a couple of them were bad, but it had nothing to do with the gender.

Plantwiz

Turgon wrote: »

...

Anyway. Welcome. Nice avatar.

See, and I thought it was a very poor choice for an avatar for a woman. But that's just me.

Men (or boys)

make up the majority of IT, but there are several women. Depends on your market.

Comes down to the science/math thing and fewer girls seem to continue to the higher levels in school. I'm not certain why, but I like the girl:guy myself

(although considering the dorks it leaves the ratio closer to 1:1 Still good odds to meet someone and better than competing with other women).

As far as the girls-aren't techie comment...again, that just depends. I've run into more men who are posers then really know anything solid when it comes to tech stuff. They (this type of guy) just like the shiny objects and saying the have them to fit into the 'club'. I've worked with plenty of those guys

And since this tread is danageously close to being sexist...I cannot believe the amount of tech-guys who cannot solder (isn't there a boy scout badge for soldering?

bertieb

shoebot wrote: »

do u think there is a higher ratio of boys to girls in these (IT) fields?

Oh yes, there are far more males working in the technical side of IT. In 11 years I've worked directly with two females on the technical side of the fence. However, if you discount the purely technical side there are a lot of females operating in service management/project management etc. Statistics should not put you off or sway you either way though, if you put in genuine effort chances are you'll be great no matter what role you choose to pursue.

Welcome to the forums and good luck with the network+ studies. As others have pointed out the network+ forum is an awesome place to start. Great avatar too!

Slowhand

First off, welcome to the forum and good luck in your Network+ studies.

What I've been seeing in my career is, for the most part, men working in technical fields like IT and physics or engineering. Lately, though, as I'm back in school, I've been noticing that more and more women are showing up in my math classes, (calc II at the moment,) and it's a refreshing sight. There's always been a trend for men to go for some fields and women to go for others, so I suppose it's tough to cross those lines and go into a field that's been traditionally regarded as that of the opposite genders'.

As erpadmin said, it's just like male nurses. Nursing has traditionally been thought of as 'womens work', while female doctors are so common now that the old riddle about the doctor and the son is almost completely irrelevant these days. As I said, though, these are trends. As little as ten years ago, it was relatively rare to see a woman in computer science, advanced math, or more advanced chem and physics classes; today, however, I'm seeing a lot more women going on these paths. More and more, it'll move towards a 1:1 ratio, it's just been slow-going because I'm sure that most women breaking into 'mens work' find it hard to get started, hard to keep going, and difficult to find support when they are constantly being underestimated by peers who do not take them seriously. (Just like how the male nurse is depicted as being made fun of for his profession in 'Meet the Parents'.)

As for the "women are better at <blank> while men are better at <blank>", get over it and get your head out of your @$$. The fact that we have to waste time and energy to answer claims like these in the year 2010 makes me sad where my heart is. . . and hurt where my brain is. Unless it's a job where you're required to pee standing up, I don't see how gender matters any more than hair color, shoe-size, or a persons choice of after-dinner mint.

mikedisd2

Plantwiz wrote: »

...I cannot believe the amount of tech-guys who cannot solder (isn't there a boy scout badge for soldering? ).

Hmm, I didn't know we had met.

Slowhand

Plantwiz wrote: »

I cannot believe the amount of tech-guys who cannot solder (isn't there a boy scout badge for soldering? ).

It's taken a lot of work, huge amounts of effort, but so far I've managed to avoid soldering . . . and the boy scouts, for that matter.

erpadmin

Slowhand wrote: »

It's taken a lot of work, huge amounts of effort, but so far I've managed to avoid soldering . . . and the boy scouts, for that matter.

+1 on that!

My lack of soldering will never take away the fact that I'm still pretty technical (and manly for that matter....)

Plantwiz

Slowhand wrote: »

It's taken a lot of work, huge amounts of effort, but so far I've managed to avoid soldering . . . and the boy scouts, for that matter.

Well, now your likely too 'old' and that if you joined...it would just be 'weird'

And 'guys' not knowing how to solder doesn't matter, but it gets old when some guys think that only 'guys' are techie or understand technology. The girl/guy comments in general are way old.

Yep, IT generally attracks more men. Women are starting to pick up interest and I've run into very ignorant men in this field and very ignorant women. If I used that as my basis, I'd 'assume' that women suck in this field, but its merely a numbers thing. When more men walk through the door compared to women, it will seem that there are more men who are qualified, when it would be best compared to a small schools football team skill compared to a larger schools football team skill. The small school 'could' have better players, but the larger school has a bigger pool of players to sift through to create the best team...applicants are the same). So, it just "depends" on the situation and market what you will find.

This board attracts similar type of folk (outgoing, intelligent, active in their chosen career and study), and I suspect (at least from the more active posting folks) that they have proven themselves very competent in their respective field. But there are maybe only 5-10 active women posting here compared to hundreds of men.

I work with a team of 7 men, and it is pretty certain that they will likely fail at fixing a hardware problem (even when they collaborate) and if I have it in my hands, I can fix it or determine it is cost prohibitive to fix (and could do it if the client wishes to pay). I LOVE when one of them rules something as 'junk' because almost everytime, I can make the device work. A few of them save the trouble and merely drop of the stuff to my desk. Then again, I don't have the patience for coding/script writing. I can do it, but would rather have my teeth drilled.

Times are changing, but for near future, I don't see the trend for women to outnumber men in mathematics fields or science fields happening any time soon...and while math/science majors don't all lean toward technology...these fields are heavily populated by men. Each team has good and bad techs, usually the skillsets compensate and as a whole the team is talented.

Aldur

Plantwiz wrote: »

See, and I thought it was a very poor choice for an avatar for a woman. But that's just me.

I'd say a poor choice for an avatar in general to tell the truth...

To the actually question at hand; in my experience I've worked with some phenomenal women co-workers and I have nothing bad to say about them what so ever. Then I've worked with some who are below par, but suffice it to say that it's really about the same averages and their male counterparts, just less women in the field. To me gender doesn't matter, just how well somebody can do the job.

Forsaken_GA

Plantwiz wrote: »

I cannot believe the amount of tech-guys who cannot solder (isn't there a boy scout badge for soldering? ).

<--- cannot solder. I really suck at making network cables. And I don't change my own oil.

I actually work with quite a few females on the tech side of things, though none of them are in networking (it's a small department), we have female admins, security analysts, DBAs, compliance officers, and so on. So from my perspective, females have integrated into the IT staff pretty well, and a female networking professional would not be unwelcome, there just don't seem to be too many woman that actually take a heavy interest in networking.

azjag

Plantwiz wrote: »

Men (or boys) make up the majority of IT, but there are several women. Depends on your market.

I work in a Library IT dept and of the 14 member staff there are 5 women on the team. 1 PC tech, 1 DBA, 1 Web admin, 1 Cisco voice engineer and a supervisor.

Anybody else work in an environment where 1/3 of the IT dept is female.

dynamik

Plantwiz wrote: »

See, and I thought it was a very poor choice for an avatar for a woman. But that's just me..

Well, I don't have anything against the picture itself, but when a new member has an avatar like that and claims to be female, it seems like there's a little social engineering going on...

Forsaken_GA

dynamik wrote: »

Well, I don't have anything against the picture itself, but when a new member has an avatar like that and claims to be female, it seems like there's a little social engineering going on...

You security guys, always so paranoid!

(we'll ignore the fact that I had the same first impression)

TheShadow

The avatar is fine, I am sure that she will change it after she feels less intimidated. As for me I have always worked with females, in design engineering, software engineering (OS and firmware) and general programming. Some of them were the best there were and some of them were just average.

When ever I was in a position to do direct hires it never bothered me if a candidate was female, but I was generally the go to person if she need a foil for problems. I do have a problem with the girl thing. If you are a woman in a mans world don't be afraid to use the term women; girls night out is for after work. If you aspire to only be as good as a man then you are lacking ambition and I will tell you so, as my two grown daughters will attest to.

Having said that, welcome to TE and ... please find another avatar; I am another with a social engineering complex.

blargoe

Women in networking are rare. I see women more often in project management, development, or call center roles.

That said, our lead network engineer is female and she kicks everyone's ass technically. Also, the last company I worked for had a female CIO that worked her way up from application development -> business analyist -> IT Director -> CIO. So it happens. But not much.

darkerosxx

dynamik wrote: »

Well, I don't have anything against the picture itself, but when a new member has an avatar like that and claims to be female, it seems like there's a little social engineering going on...

That plus this is a totally sexist thread. T r o l l smorgasbord.

TheShadow

darkerosxx wrote: »

That plus this is a totally sexist thread. T r o l l smorgasbord.

Really? I am sorry that you feel that way. Most members try to keep the *****'s under the bridge; as you can see even the word is not allowed.

There is one other female posting in this thread that is an excellent mentor. Many do not realize that, which is a credit to her. I have found nothing blatantly sexist so far.

By airing some of the things that we all run into in this field, it is my sincere wish and hope that some of the lurkers (i.e. guests) that frequent TE will take an active part in all the forums. It is my guess that a good percentage of them are female.

L0gicB0mb508

I've worked with several women in IT. Some were extremely good and some were less than stellar. I think more women are entering the field, and that's a good thing.

Pash

Welcome. Good luck in your chosen studies.

Ohh and Shoebot. I have to ask this. Did you used to work in a Prometric Test Centre near Liverpool Street Station? (apologies if that question seems random).

Pash

shoebot

Hey all, thanks so much for your input, there have been some interesting comments! The fact that I am female is no major issue for me, but I was curious and glad I asked the question.

pash, no I have not set foot near a PTC yet, and the username is nothing to do with the python graphics bot either

Also, looks like the avatar stirred things up somewhat - forsaken_ga you made me chuckle! I quite like it but I admit it wasn't my first choice. Anyway, I have given in and decided to change it to prevent any offending anyone else

I've been in the general posts forum to seek advice on paths to take after network+ and I am pleased with the feedback. I am very grateful for your assistance in where I should be going...thanks again everyone for the comments

Plantwiz

shoebot wrote: »

Also, looks like the avatar stirred things up somewhat - forsaken_ga you made me chuckle! I quite like it but I admit it wasn't my first choice. Anyway, I have given in and decided to change it to prevent any offending anyone else

I don't think it is a matter of your avatar being 'offensive'. Rather the image you are attempting to project. Your first impression to a mostly male (many single) audience of nerdy guys is a sexy avatar...it doesn't necessarily create a 'hey I'm a serious about working in IT". Once you've established yourself, then you change the avatar to something like the one you started with...it won't reflect on you attempting to get yourself noticed.

Use the avatar of your choice. Changing it so quickly based on comments from a bunch of people who have nothing else to base your personality or level of experience by, also is worth noting, but only YOU can decide who you are here. No one bites (that I'm aware of) and most have had shots

So, they're ok!

Meeting new peers/friends through a forum takes time. Ask questions and stay involved in the threads you start. Help out as you are able, and folks will get to know you for you.

Be yourself.

And if you feel your first avatar reflects you and the way you want people to think of you...use it.