Interesting Features at PWN for 4.20.15

News from the PWN Pipeline:

"I try to let fear be a good sign."

A recent post in The Guardian features several tips given by Julie Lenzer Kirk on navigating a mid-career transition. Lenzer Kirk is a serial technology entrepreneur who, within the past year, was appointed to Director of the Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the US department of commerce. When she began her position, she had little experience in the federal government. In the post, she offers several key mindsets she adopted in order to succeed in adapting and succeeding in her role, including viewing fear of failure as an enormous opportunity for career growth.  

'Many female computer science students feel uncomfortable speaking up.'

In a commentary for Fortune online, Pooja Sankar, the CEO and founder of Piazza, a social learning platform that connects college students with classmates and instructors in real time, expresses concern about the pervasive confidence gap among female computer science majors. An analysis of Piazza data revealed that female computer science majors, relative to their male counterparts, asked more questions but answered fewer questions online and when given an option, preferred to ask and answer questions anonymously. Sankar suggests that female computer science majors may feel uncomfortable speaking up, and indicates that the Piazza data findings are replicated at many computer science programs in Ivy League universities and tech powerhouse schools. One strategy that these programs could employ, suggests Sankar, is to introduce more 'active learning' in classrooms in order to engage male and female students in their coursework and encourage participation via collaborative projects and activities.