Advantages

Advantages I Have Had

By opting to study math/statistics, I felt that I have had a few advantages against a “stereotypical” statistics student.

• Being among a minority (in this case a female) seemed to be advantageous towards acceptance into graduate school (and towards scholarship opportunities).
• My native English tongue combined with my (semi-) outgoing personality also seemed to put me as a front runner when job searching (being a Statistician requires good communication skills to successfully collaborate with a variety of researchers).

A leader

Imagine the excitement when my friend emailed me the link to the news of the first female Fields Medal (like a Nobel Prize for math) recipient!   The medal is only awarded to young mathematicians (<40) and it is said that although there have been outstanding female mathematicians in the past, their greatest work was after 40.  

This is a promising move in the right direction to inspire and provide hope to other female mathematicians as well as ideally building more appeal to young girls that are still exploring options for their futures.

My female inspiration

Some of the greatest math/statistics teachers that I had were female.  One of the women that inspired me in my early math career was the professor that I had for Calculus I and II.  I took the courses at a nearby college while still in high school after taking their college math placement test.  I didn’t want to be looked down upon since I was the lone high schooler in the class so I worked really hard to do well and took the time to use my professor’s office hours if I had any struggles.  

Granted, I lucked out having someone with such a passion for math and students (and humor) but this is the type of teaching that should be more widespread so that more students can thrive in math!

For more references, there is a whole association that provides a membership for women in math: https://sites.google.com/site/awmmath/home

and specifically for “girls in math and science”: https://sites.google.com/site/awmmath/home/girls-in-science-math

Source: http://time.com/3105056/math-prize-woman/



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