The Harvard Percentage Project: Understanding the Multifaceted Experiences of Underrepresented Groups in STEM

By the Percentage Project Team: Melissa Kwan ’22, Nadine Meister ’24, Lauren Chen ’24, Parita Shah ’24, and Leah Teichholtz ’24

The “STEM” dream - why concentrate in STEM-related fields?

What is the STEM dream?

For some, it may be a hefty paycheck and job stability. For others, it could be the allure of fast-paced Silicon Valley startup life — the chance to be the next Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg. Perhaps it is its inherently multidisciplinary nature, allowing concentrators to combine engineering and computer science with the humanities, social sciences, life sciences, and more. Or maybe it is the promise of using technology for positive impact and better the world.

Sarika Chawla ’23’s “STEM dream” is to someday create products to help other people with disabilities. “I want to be able to see the real impact that my work is having and see that it's helping people and helping communities," she said.

Robin Robinson ’22 imagines herself someday becoming a high school teacher to inspire kids to continue to pursue STEM, a field she feels is getting increasingly more important. As for Catherine Huang ’24, she believes technology on its own is “not too useful, but when you use it as a tool to combat social issues — that’s where I want to be at.”

Meanwhile, environmental science and engineering concentrator Eric Jjemba ’21 hopes to combine his scientific education with his perspective as a Black man to understand how climate change will disproportionately impact certain communities.

Ingrained in Harvard’s mission statement is the goal to “educate the citizens and citizen-leaders for our society” so that students can learn “how they can best serve the world.” How does Harvard promote — or inhibit — the STEM dreams of students from the first line of code to graduation?

The findings of the Percentage Project show that one’s identity may play a critical role in one’s Computer Science and STEM experience. Over the past few months, we compiled data from a survey asking questions of those pursuing a concentration or secondary in STEM and CS adjacent fields as well as conducted over thirty interviews to paint a more complete picture of the experience of underrepresented groups in these fields.

The Growing Interest in STEM

Computer Science is Harvard’s second largest concentration, trailing only economics. The Crimson reported that the number of CS concentrators had tripled in the past ten years. Applied math, too, was the fourth most popular concentration. One clear example of this growth is in Harvard’s famous introductory computer science class , CS50. In 2006, 132 students took the class. In 2019, 735 students opted to take the course.

A 2017 Harvard Open Data Project report which analyzed concentration numbers over the years concluded, “Harvard students are shifting from social sciences to more quantitative fields like applied math, statistics, and computer science to be more competitive on Wall Street, in Silicon Valley, and in data-driven fields.”

A WiCS advocacy study from 2016 found that the level of male CS concentrators had increased every year between 2009 and 2016, from 73 to 261 concentrators, respectively. And although the number of female CS concentrators has risen from 18 to 89 in that same period, that growth has slowed in the past few years.

But with a bigger concentration comes more crowded office hours, larger lectures, and less individualized support, especially for those who might be coming from underrepresented backgrounds.

A Lack of Support for Women and Underrepresented Minorities

Women studying CS were more likely to start learning to code in college than men, who start earlier, meaning women may need extra support. But according to our findings, only 27% of women feel supported studying CS and related fields, while nearly 65% of men said they do. 39% of women had seriously considered leaving their concentration, as opposed to only 22% of men.

Typically, the first source of support for students struggling in a class is office hours. In office hours, professors and teaching fellows can offer group or one-on-one assistance with topics or specific problems on an assignment.

Some students, like Robin Robinson ‘22, have not always had positive experiences in the space — not because of course staff, but perhaps because of the other students in the space. Robinson recalled her frustrations while attending office hours for Stat 110, a foundational statistics class for many STEM concentrators.

“And I was trying to ask the student sitting in front of me, ‘What'd you get for number 3? I got 5.’ And he said, ‘What?’ and was talking to me very disrespectfully and threw in the word ‘dumb’ or something,” she reflected. “I don't know, it was just very disheartening. I kind of just left office hours, but it gave me a really bad impression of the department and the students in the department.”

Still, the majority of students across gender, racial groups, and socioeconomic statuses continue to feel comfortable asking questions during office hours. Similarly, most reported that when they need extra help in a CS class, they go to office hours.

Why is it that women who study CS and related fields and who are given the same access to office hours, platforms like Ed and Piazza feel unsupported in their studies compared to their male counterparts?

In Harvard’s Class of 2024, first generation students made up 19.4% of the class, up from 16.4% the year before. Is Harvard supporting these students in their studies after they enroll? We found that for first-generation students studying computer science, the disparities are grim.

“Overall, I think the department means well and they're very supportive,” Tatiana Jimenez ’21 said. “But being a first generation student, I feel like there were a lot of things that people assumed I would know that I really didn't know going in, and I had to figure out on my own. And that was kind of hard, where I felt like I was almost constantly behind or chasing after other students who had so much more background coming into college.”

According to our findings, 84.21% of first-generation students feel intimidated studying Computer Science and related fields as opposed to only 46.28% of non first-generation students. First-generation students felt less confident studying STEM fields than others, and felt less respected by their peers, professors, and teaching fellows.

Intersectionality is also a deeply impactful part of one’s undergraduate STEM experience.

“I’m a first generation college student, I'm also black. I'm also a female. You don't really see that many people in those positions and and on top of that, I barely had CS experience,” expressed Helen Mehretaab ‘23.

And for some, socioeconomic status may be more impactful on one’s education and experience at Harvard than anything else, including gender or race. First generation and low income students were much more likely to have written their first line of code in college (42% versus 22% and 38% versus 20%, respectively) according to findings from our study. Anecdotal evidence, too, backs this up.

“The main impact on me is probably being a first generation college student, and also the fact that my parents are immigrants, so that makes it like there are times where I feel like ‘Man, I don't know as much as other people, how do they know what they need to do,’” Mehreteab shared. “I've always felt that I don't know anything.”

The Alex Patel fellowship program also aims to provide one-on-one tutoring in computer science classes for students who need more support than they could get from office hours alone. The program is a key step toward helping those who may be struggling in courses, but with only one Patel Fellow per CS course and many more students who need help, it may not be sufficient.

Importance of Mentorship and Affinity Groups

On top of Harvard’s pre professional and cultural organizations, the College also has a number of groups specifically dedicated to their intersection, like the Harvard Society of Black Scientists and Engineers (HSBSE), the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE), and Women in Computer Science (WiCS).

Robin Robinson ‘22 credits her mentor from HSBSE for encouraging her to remain a statistics concentrator.

“He would just help me as much as possible, meet with me every month,” she said. “I wouldn't have gone to this certain point without him because I definitely would have dropped stats by now. I wasn't a concentrator last spring. But he convinced me to keep going. And I'm glad I did.”

Students also receive first-year advisors upon entering the College and specific concentration advisors after they declare. These advisors can also act as systems of support for students who may need advice or mentorship during their studies. Emily Chan ‘21 spoke highly of her freshman year advisor — Professor James Mickens — for mentoring her in the field and encouraging her to continue pursuing CS, despite any doubts she may have held going in.

"There's no chance that I would still be in computer science if he had not been my freshman year advisor. He's done so much for me. In writing letters of recommendation, signing off on my research project, just keeping the door open to different kinds of opportunities,” she said. “He just really pushed me to do more"

Mehretaab gave a shout out to Professor Chong, her first-generation faculty mentor, who pushed her to take more difficult classes than she may have taken otherwise, like Computer Science 61: Systems Programming and Machine Organization.

“He definitely had a positive impact on my experience” Mehreteab said. “I told him I ended up not taking CS61 because I was too scared and he was like ‘No, you should take CS 61’...he definitely has good advice and he knows what he's doing.”

Harvard Faculty Composition

One such reason may be Harvard’s lack of female-identifying faculty in SEAS fields. A 2017 Harvard Open Data Project survey found that math and environmental science and engineering did not have a single tenured female professor. SEAS on average had 16% female tenured faculty, a troubling statistic for a school trying to attract more female concentrators.

Nearly 60% of women feel more comfortable in a class taught by a professor that matches their identity, as opposed to only around 12% of men, according to our survey results.

25% of tenured CS professors were women, making up a greater proportion than might be expected. But CS50 and CS51, Harvard’s fundamental introductory computer science classes, are both taught by men — Professor Malan and Professor Shieber, respectively. CS 121 and CS 124, the required theory classes, are also taught by men. Even though female CS professors make up 25% of the department, a female concentrator may not have an instructor of her gender until junior year.

Even when faculty demographics may not match that of their students, the teaching staff — the army of teaching fellows and course assistants who run sections, office hours, and grading — may help to lessen these disparities. Because most TFs and CAs are students in the College or graduate students, they better align with undergraduate demographics.

Paths to Change

Women are making gains in STEM. In 1970, a 2019 U.S. Census report found that women were just 8% of STEM workers. Today, they occupy 27% of STEM jobs, though when women make up nearly half the workforce, this is still representative of a major gender gap. More women are choosing STEM majors, a Georgetown study found, but they’re choosing fields like biology, not CS or engineering.

Furthermore, among the 70 occupations the Census reports on, women earned less than men in all except one — computer network architects, where they represent only 8% of the workforce.

“I love saying that women should feel empowered to be in CS, but by saying you need to be empowered means that someone thinks that you shouldn't have power, inherently,” Annika Huprikaur ‘24 said. “And so it's a paradox for me. I hope, in a way, we never have to say women should feel empowered, because it should just be that women are in CS.”

A 2018 Wired article found that white people earn 62% of computer science degrees. Black people made up 10% of CS degrees, and Hispanic people represented just 12% of these degrees.

"It's most likely not going to happen in my lifetime, but I hope to see a STEM field that is reflective of the demographics of the U.S," Tobi Ogunfowora ‘24 reflected.

SEAS at Harvard may be a microcosm of the field more generally. But Harvard can continue to make strides toward inclusivity, even if the problems that persist are ingrained beyond the University itself. SEAS devised a Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging Strategic Plan in May of 2019 to address issues of diversity within the department and create a more inclusive community.

One takeaway from our interviews and survey is that though Harvard has many resources for STEM students, there may be a disconnect between these offerings and whether or not students actually take advantage of them. Many students may come into Harvard from private schools where individualized attention and advising is taken for granted, but some low-income, first generation students may not have the same background. SEAS may have to do extra work to actively reach out to students with these resources.

Another conclusion is that when institutional resources fail, student pre-professional affinity groups can play a meaningful and important role in helping underrepresented students feel comfortable and thrive in STEM. Over 75% of every demographic tracked in our survey believed these groups are still needed today, even students who have not historically been underrepresented in STEM.

Those we interviewed for the Percentage Project, despite currently being underrepresented in STEM at Harvard and in the United States, were optimistic about a more equitable future.

"I really hope to see a more diverse group of people working together to solve challenges that our society faces,” Eshika Saxena ‘23 said. “That diversity is not just gender or race, but also in terms of expertise and working on interdisciplinary projects — combining expertise to develop world changing solutions is really what I would hope to see.”