“What makes you think you can learn computer science?”
The question has echoed around inside Mary Miller’s head for decades, she said.
It first came from a teacher at her son’s class picnic right after Miller shared plans to defy gender roles and step outside the home to enroll in Virginia Tech’s College of Engineering as a 32-year-old mother of two in 1983.
At that point in her life, Miller had already walked away from one opportunity to earn a master’s degree in mathematics in favor of a Virginia Tech education degree, which was the more typical option for women at the time. Then she left that teaching career to stay home and take care of her family.
