Monday, March 14, 2016

How NOT to Get Women in STEM




































Please don't have liberal arts majors taking photos of other liberal arts majors playing "make believe STEM women."  Just buy a girl you care about, who you want to do well in college, this simple book.

24 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's a circuit board, where tiny things are mounted really close together. Holding the soldering iron on the hot part is just the beginning, just about everything in that photo is ludicrous.

Anonymous said...

And all the soldering points are on the other side of the fucking board. But that little detail didn't matter either. What matters is cupcake looks smart!

cecilhenry said...

Okay. So NOW this photo can go viral!!!

Diversity means everyone MUST think alike about 'diversity'.

Anonymous said...

Feminist fail. Lol.

It is funny because I did the same thing...when I was 8 years old.



Mr.Fruitbaskets said...

Ah, I remember seeing that picture not long ago! the people who made that photo shoot, especially the girl in the photo are even stupider than you think; I can clearly see that the metal end of the soldering iron WHERE SHE IS HOLDING IT already has that charred gradient to it, telling you it has already been used before. But nooo, hold it in the obviously super hot area of the "stick".
Infuriatingly stupid!

a bear said...

No, no. She's obviously just using it as a pry to pop out the backup battery (which is about the only user-serviceable part on a mainboard, anyways).

Anonymous said...

She is soldering the wrong side of the board as well.

Unknown said...

Lol my buddy daniel sent the image with out any annotations two nights ago with the question "whats wrong with this picture?" I just laughed out loud

Unknown said...

I'd be curious to know why she's poking a circuit board with a soldering iron - no solder, no solder extraction tool, no new parts. Even if that board had a cold solder joint - that's not going to do any good.

My guess is that any woman interested in STEM wouldn't care about the image - they've already decided which way to go. If they're being shoved in that direction, then they're not going to realize there's anything wrong with the image.

Eric S. Mueller said...

She's also on the wrong side of the board. The majority of solder joints are on the back. The board should be upside down and mounted in place. But you can't expect worthless people to know that. She should also have some kind of magnifying lens to see the solder joints.

98abaile said...

Not forgetting that she is trying to solder without solder.

Tal Hartsfeld said...

It can't be THAT difficult to teach most anybody how to properly use a soldering iron.
Besides: If one picks an iron up too close to the outer edge and burn themselves chances are they'll simply drop the iron and either have to unplug it, or they'll pick the iron up again but properly by the handle end this time.

Anonymous said...

What's with the chem lab in the background. I can quite easily identify the fume hood. Also, no ESD controls? So much is wrong with this photo I'm not really sure where to begin...

Rando said...

Not to mention that the soldering iron she is using looks just like the cheap-ass radioshack piece of crap I started out with when I began as a hobbyist in electronics. In other words, underpowered, crappy tip, and no temperature compensation. When I went pro and finally had decent equipment to work with, the difference was like night and day. And you would think that if this had been posed in a university lab they would have decent soldering equipment.

FYI: You should NEVER use a soldering iron as a prying tool.

Merlin said...

OK, so exactly WHERE did this picture come from? I have to know who really was this stupid.

Bike Bubba said...

Wrong side of board, no solder, no magnifying glass (important with small features), no ESD protection, nothing holding the board, and it was probably put together with wave or reflow soldering to begin with.

RJ said...

The stupid, it burns.

Literally...

JK Brown said...

A month after that photo was taken the electronics student switched to the nursing program citing what she saw in the ER and doctor visits during her rehabilitation.

Anonymous said...

Not that it matters, but I'm a female who can solder (surface mount, mill PCBs, etc)/weld (TIG/MIG,etc) /do basic machining (mill/lathe)/programming (Python/C++, Java), etc and loves your blog! This was awesome. It benefits me (because I actually like that stuff) because with all these opportunities for women, the majority still aren't going through and doing the work; the usual two or three remain. I was in a woodworking class once where this girl (the only other one besides myself) showed up, excused herself halfway and never came back. She was reading a book on "Chicano Poetry", too. You should check out the average Algorithm class; the four ladies in mine who joined dropped by the second week like flies! I'm also extremely feminine and have been pretty much taken since I was 18. Thanks for your service, Cappy! :)

YIH said...

I bet I know where you found it: https://goodbyeamericainaphoto.wordpress.com/.
Worth visiting to see (and laugh at) trainwrecks such as this one.

(((Doc B))) said...

This should be mocked loud and wide.

In the fire service, we call this a "self correcting problem".

Anonymous said...

In addition here is what else is up with that Photo:

1) Motherboard has multiple Layers so you'll never be able to desolder with that Iron

2) Surface Mount Components so that Iron is too big

3) Crappy Iron, get a Weller!

Source: Technical College Electronics Training

Then again, some University EEE Degrees don't even have any practical element to them anymore as most of the work is done by techs in the backroom for the Undergrads so IMO they'll end up as crappy engineers because they will lack the practical knowledge for the design stage.



Tucanae Services said...

Getting women in STEM can be fairly easy if you take the right approach. Women are like cats, an interesting puzzle drives them crazy. The trick is to craft the puzzle to their predilections. But you have to draw them in and each new bauble of a puzzle can only be a bit harder than the last. That is Mariska doll like education that is not an approach offered in US educational precepts.

Worked well enough for my daughter. She's now in IT support and a programmer.

Rich Fader said...

This is what happens when you have stock photos taken by people who don't understand the subject they're shooting.