Tennessee Tech University Department of Computer Science Blog

[This is a post by Tennessee Tech Computer Science Alumna Mary Prince.]

I didn’t know what being a woman in technology really meant until I entered college. I knew Computer Science was considered nontraditional for a girl to pursue and it’s part of the reason why I received a scholarship, but to be honest I didn’t think much about it. I grew up with many computers in my house and all I knew was that I liked how I could be creative with technology and I wanted to have a career that involved technology in some way.

Fast forward to my first week of college and I have to admit, I was a little shocked. Sitting in 60-person class with all guys and 5 or less girls is intimidating. I went to a small high school in a rural town and just merely sitting in a class with this many people was strange to me. As that Intro to Programming class got into gear, I started to wonder if I was cut out for this major. I felt so behind compared to everyone else in class and I struggled. Not only was I struggling with the material but I was struggling with my confidence too. I felt like I needed to prove myself and show I was capable of the same skills to this class full of guys. Somehow, I passed that Intro to Programming class but I was in for an even harder course: Dr. Boshart’s Data Structures class (this is where the setbacks truly begin).

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I have learned an important truth that I like to share with students considering a career in computer science – that a career in computer science can mean a career in almost anything. Computers are everywhere and a part of everything, so there are probably careers that combine computer science with almost any other interest or passion that you have. This is important to me for two reasons – first, because I think far too few students really understand how much of the interesting work in the world today is occurring at the intersection of computer science and some other field (science, engineering, medicine, pharmacology, insurance, manufacturing, and even the humanities) and second, because my life has been profoundly shaped by the accidental discovery of a just such a passion that I continue to combine with computer science.

Photo by Javier Rodriguez Rodriguez (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0)

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I have worked in a library for nearly 19 years but I’m not a librarian.  I began working at the Putnam County library doing typical library stuff – shelving books, checking books in, checking them out, helping with random questions, and learning how to “deal” with every personality (and mental disease) known to man.  Once my supervisor found out I was working on my Computer Science degree she allowed me to work on the library’s website.  My first website was so very hideous!  It was all about how many new cool things I could do!  I created it in Microsoft FrontPage (discontinued WYSIWYG HTML editor) which allowed me to easily apply over 1000 different background images, moving Gifs, blinking text, fancy trailing pointer movement, and neon colors.  Ok – so I am exaggerating a little (but really….it was bad).

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Hi!  This is my first ever blog post. I have written articles for newsletters, conferences, and journals, but had never written a blog post until today.

It is hard to believe that I have been teaching in the Department of Computer Science since August of 1993! I am beginning my twenty-fourth academic year of full-time teaching.  All my colleagues from that first 1993-1994 school year are no longer working in Bruner Hall, due to retirements or professional moves.  When I first started teaching at TTU, I was only about 4 years older than the seniors; now a lot of the freshmen were born in 1998. The new students take for granted a lot of things that are technological advances to me. They have never known life without the World Wide Web or smartphones.

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