Wel­co­me to our third con­tri­bu­ti­on to our “Wo­men in STEM” series!

Ju­lia and Ja­ros­la­va have both been stu­dy­ing Ap­pli­ed Com­pu­ter Sci­ence sin­ce Sep­tem­ber 2021. Alt­hough the num­ber of fe­ma­le stu­dents has in­creased in re­cent ye­ars, this de­gree pro­gram­me is still main­ly do­mi­na­ted by men.
Ap­pli­ed Com­pu­ter Sci­ence is a very di­ver­se de­gree pro­gram­me that al­lows you to work in dif­fe­rent pro­fes­sio­nal fields and take on dif­fe­rent jobs.

To give you a bet­ter in­sight into this de­gree pro­gram­me at TecAlliance, we in­ter­view­ed Ja­ros­la­va and Julia.

Why did you de­ci­de on this de­gree programme/training?

Ju­lia: I cho­se com­pu­ter sci­ence be­cau­se I think com­pu­ters are cool and wan­ted to learn more about how to use them and – of cour­se – how to pro­gram them.

Ja­ros­la­va: I come from an IT fa­mi­ly, which is why I have been in this en­vi­ron­ment sin­ce birth. I got my first com­pu­ter when I was 3 ye­ars old and sin­ce I was 10 ye­ars old I knew – IT is an op­ti­on for me. But sin­ce I could­n’t de­ci­de exact­ly which area of IT I wan­ted to work in, I was very ex­ci­ted about the op­por­tu­ni­ty to stu­dy Ap­pli­ed Com­pu­ter Science.

Did you al­re­a­dy have tech­ni­cal in­te­rests beforehand?

Ju­lia: I tried GNU/Linux (espe­ci­al­ly Gentoo).

Ja­ros­la­va: Yes, wat­ching my par­ents was what got me in­te­res­ted in IT.

What tech­ni­cal to­pics ex­ci­te you the most?

Ju­lia: For me, it ch­an­ges oc­ca­sio­nal­ly, de­pen­ding on what I’ve re­cent­ly found in­te­res­t­ing in­for­ma­ti­on about. At the mo­ment, ho­we­ver, my fa­vou­ri­te to­pic is da­ta­ba­ses. The fa­vou­ri­te to­pic of all time is ope­ra­ting systems.

Ja­ros­la­va: Net­work en­gi­nee­ring was one of the most in­te­res­t­ing sub­jects at uni­ver­si­ty for me. May­be it’s in my ge­nes thanks to my father.
I wro­te my first pro­ject pa­per on an­o­ther sub­ject I’m pas­sio­na­te about – ma­chi­ne lear­ning. Pro­gramming, on the other hand, is not re­al­ly my thing.

What is the dis­tri­bu­ti­on of girls/boys in your cour­ses? Do you no­ti­ce that the­se are still ty­pi­cal­ly male domains?

Ju­lia: You do no­ti­ce that com­pu­ter sci­ence is still an un­ba­lan­ced sub­ject. In my cour­se, the pro­por­ti­on of wo­men is about 13%, and the­re are four in total.

Ja­ros­la­va: Oh yes, you de­fi­ni­te­ly no­ti­ce the male do­mi­nan­ce. Out of the ori­gi­nal 33 stu­dents, only four of them are wo­men. But it has to be said that in the cour­ses be­fo­re the­re were even fe­wer wo­men. It is no­ti­ceable that more and more wo­men are co­ming into en­gi­nee­ring and not be­cau­se of any quo­tas, but out of interest.

If you would like to learn more about the dual stu­dy pro­gram­me in Ap­pli­ed Com­pu­ter Sci­ence at TecAlliance, you can find out more here.