Facebook Programmer Says Comp Sci Professors Laughed At Her For Being A Cheerleader [VIDEO]

Facebook released a nice little video today, discussing the company’s efforts to promote women (despite not having any on their board). Though the appearance from Sheryl Sandberg was nice, the definite highlight was engineer Sophia Chung’s story of putting her anti-cheerleader professor squarely in his place.

She says:

“I walked into class wearing a cheerleading uniform and the teacher just cracked up. He thought it was the funniest thing to see a cheerleader in a programming class. That day, he also passed back the first test from that term and he announced that the person with the highest grade in that class, with 100 percent, was me, the cheerleader. I kind of broke down the stereotype for him at that moment: the idea that girls can’t program, that cheerleaders are stupid, that women shouldn’t be in technology. It just takes a moment like that to really change someone’s mindset about where women belong in technology.”

Check out the clip of Chung, Sandberg and others here:

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