Foundation layers: following in the footsteps

by: Edward A. Brown

When Carmin Karasic graduated with a Bachelors of Science in Math from Suffolk University some 30 years ago, she was the only woman to do so.

Although women still represent a tiny percentage of the workforce in traditionally masculine fields, and vice versa, numbers have been creeping up.

Karasic has spent more than 20 years in computer science, once again as an extreme minority. Fittingly, she believes the technology itself has brought about changes in the way recruitment works.

“With the advent of the Internet, you can put your stuff online, so what people see is nothing other than your code… so what they see is you,” she said. “It’s another opportunity for gender and race to melt away and have no significance at all.”

“I think it is easier for women now because at some point if you’re going to get a job where you have to interview in person, now, they don’t think ‘maybe she can’t do this,'” Karasic said. “That is because now, most people entering the field have grown up with computers and so if they say they can program, they probably can.”