Thumb drive. Hard drive. Tape drive.

To many, these terms are nothing more than gibberish, but to those who spend their days in the Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) department, they are a part of the everyday routine.

Experts say the computer science field is and has been for some time heavily overpopulated by men. The UW's department is only about 20 percent women, said Ed Lazowska, the Bill & Melinda Gates Chair in the CSE department.

According to the Computing Research Association's Recruitment and Retention of Women Graduate Students in Computer Science and Engineering report, "Often women report feeling 'out of place' in the male-dominated, hacker culture."

One graduate student said the unequal representation is largely attributed to misconceptions about the field.

"Stereotypes, ... the types of people we see in the movies and the TV shows, are usually young males," said Anna Cavender, a third year doctoral student in the CSE department. "There is a real lack of understanding in the general public as to what computer science is."

The problem starts at the high school level, Lazowska said.

"Computer programming is part of CSE, not all of it," he said.

Building diversity within the field is an important goal for the UW's department.

"[The lack of women] hurts the field terribly," Lazowska said. "The most important issue is we are producing systems for everyone to use, and if they are all built by the same people, they will all be directed toward the same people."

There are many attempts to attract more women and minorities to the field, but people's perceptions must be altered before changes can happen, Cavender said.

These efforts are taking place in three different ways, Lazowska said.

"We need to attract them, enroll them and help them succeed," Cavender added.

The endeavor begins with attraction, which can be stimulated by spreading the word at an early age that computer science is a viable option for future goals.

"The message is that this is an unbelievably great field," Lazowska said. "It is intellectually very stimulating and also very rewarding."

With enrollment, the CSE department, and the UW as a whole, is taking a more holistic approach to admission.

"We want to be educating future leaders, looking at the whole person and determining if they have what it takes to succeed," Lazowska said.

In order to help people thrive, it is necessary to make them feel less isolated, he said.

"We need to form individual cohorts and let them know that they can succeed," Lazowska added.

While the report shows the UW does a better job at recruiting and maintaining women in the department than many other universities, there is still much room for improvement.

"What is needed is an effort by all departments to increase the total number of women in computing-related graduate programs nationally," the report stated.

High school computer science classes or the perception of the field should not be deciding factors before looking into a degree in CSE, Lazowska emphasized.

"It's your intellectual horsepower and drive," he said. "That's what pays off in the future."

Reach reporter Celia Hunko at news@thedaily.washington.edu.