Response to Brian Foley on M.S. vs. PhD.

[mcolbert at GENETICS.COM]

Hello,

In response to Brian Foley's comments on "finding what you are looking for" I
agree with Karen and Kay that he ought to re-read his own message,
particularly the part about the 4 women being encouraged to take the master's
and leave, while the men were encouraged to stay on for the doctorate.  

But that isn't the only thing I want to say.  I had a very different
experience in graduate school, and in both companies I have worked for.  I did
take the master's and go, but that was 100% my choice.  In fact, my advisor
did his best to convince me to stay.  He tries to convince every one of his
grad students to stay for a PhD, male and female.  I never ran into any bias
at all, that I noticed, in grad school.  Is this unusual?  I have been hearing
a lot about how this discrimination against woman begins as early as grade
school, and again, I never noticed any.  I always thought I was an observant
person, but maybe not...?  I have worked for two large-ish companies, one
before grad school, and one now.  Both times they were technically oriented
companies (computers and biotech).  Both times I had wonderfully supportive
mangers. In fact, the first company sent me to grad school for my M.S. in
biomedical engineering, all expenses paid.  So of course I felt like a valued
employee there!  And my current company also seems to be very progressive
about its attitudes towards women, but it is a young company, so I think that
is to be expected.

To sum up, I don't recall any discrimination or bias against me because I was
a woman at any point (so far) in my academic or professional career.  Do
people think this is unusual?  Have I just been lucky?   I would really like
to hear what you think.

-Maureen Colbert           mcolbert at genetics.com
 Scientific Computing
 Genetics Institute
 Cambridge, MA