My DD had the same experience in her CS major-- the real problem was that there was such incredible hostility from fellow (98% male) students-- and from first year faculty advisors, who were also male and dismissive of anything resembling "well-rounded" interests.
In fact, the two different advising specialists that she saw openly SCOFFED at her interests outside of engineering/CS. She was treated like a space alien in her CS and engineering courses-- a highly desirable one, to be sure, being a Real Live Girl and all-- but it was lonely and marginalizing.
It was such a huge turn-off that my DD just couldn't take anymore of it and bailed on the major. She looked around and realized that if that was who she was going to be spending all of her time with-- no thanks.
HK....that's just horrible. Hugs to you and your daughter. I hope she has a better experience with her other interests! They were probably just jealous of her many talents and, you know, manners.
At least she figured it out now, instead of five years from now when she's stuck in a miserable career.
She didn't really see it as "horrible." I mean, sure-- there was definitely subtle and not-so-subtle sexual harassment happening, mostly at the hands of fellow-students. But she's not particularly thin-skinned there. She was just glad to know before getting a degree in the subject, as you say. She's quite pragmatic about that.
It's ironic that the girl who already had a research publication in the field was the one being treated as "merely decorative" by all of her classmates in those CS classes, though. I think that rather speaks to val's point. DD found it quite annoying to have to ARGUE with a lab partner about the right way to do something, when they had no clue and assumed that she didn't either.
