On 2008-11-25, Brenda Wallace penned: > On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 11:09 PM, Helen Faulkner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> >> To get back on topic, does anyone think that CS-related careers are harder or >> easier, compared to other careers, to take a break from and actually get back >> into it? As in: is it a career that fits well or badly with the types of >> disruption that parenthood often presents, for men or for women? Maybe this >> is >> part of the reason why women are being turned off CS - the field changes so >> fast >> that you lose 6 months you might be in trouble... > > i've always thought that opensource, because of it's accessibility, > would be much easier to stay up with. Not needing to keep buying the > latest commercial/proprietary product + subscription to their > documentation means i could keep up with most of it given a spare > afternoon once a week.
Not exactly the same thing, but ... A friend of mine recently quit her job and is going to start looking for a new one soon. She's recently been a technical manager and wants to go back to implementation. I suggested that she should work on open source projects to brush up her skills and to have something to show her prospective employers. She was surprised and delighted by this idea. Another female acquaintance of mine was looking for a job after a few years' break. She did find that she was very rusty, and said that with two children and a husband who works far more than full-time, she had not been able to find any time at all to keep up. I wonder, though, if this is a personality and priorities thing. It seems to me that it's vitally important for parents to take some time for themselves, even / especially when they're fulltime stay at home parents. If you're a person who lives and breathes software, you'll find a way to make that part of your personal time. If not, you will spend that time other ways. ... also, to be fair, she was somewhat suddenly thrust into the workforce because of the financial situation. I don't think she'd been planning to go back to work quite yet. Of course, I say all this with extreme naivete, not having ever had kids. I can't really picture how my husband and I would manage that; we're both extremely wrapped up in software jobs that don't follow nice eight hour workdays. -- monique Help us help you: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
