I've always admired my mother's tenacity and zeal for life. She picked a lot of herself during her masters in English literature and Philosophy and I was witness to that change. I heard Fareed Zakaria's famous book in 2015 on the merits of a liberal arts education. With those two data points and knowing Shreya's personality, choosing a liberal arts school was a no brainer. She's a big believer in girl power and was fascinated by all-girls schools.
Wellesley was our top choice of all the all-girls schools and we toured learned about almost all of them. The access to MIT was an important part of the decision making criteria as well. The gender focus was very important to Shreya. Being in tech myself, I experience first hand how women self select themselves out of promising tech roles at work simply because they view themselves as a skewed minority in the class. Take a look at this article for more context. At Wellesley, Shreya is exposed to strong women role models and has developed a strong sense of her self. Seeing a class full of women in CS will only make it harder for her to make an excuse to drop the class or the major IMHO :-). Her personality is more liberal arts-based but not getting a CS education is a nonstarter in our house :-). Wellesley had the perfect liberal arts environment and has a strong well regarded CS program https://www.wellesley.edu/cs .
Wellesley was our top choice of all the all-girls schools and we toured learned about almost all of them. The access to MIT was an important part of the decision making criteria as well. The gender focus was very important to Shreya. Being in tech myself, I experience first hand how women self select themselves out of promising tech roles at work simply because they view themselves as a skewed minority in the class. Take a look at this article for more context. At Wellesley, Shreya is exposed to strong women role models and has developed a strong sense of her self. Seeing a class full of women in CS will only make it harder for her to make an excuse to drop the class or the major IMHO :-). Her personality is more liberal arts-based but not getting a CS education is a nonstarter in our house :-). Wellesley had the perfect liberal arts environment and has a strong well regarded CS program https://www.wellesley.edu/cs .
Shreya is far too creative a thinker IMHO that a large STEM focused university (like most of the UCs) would have been enough to keep her challenged. When she was in the 11th grade, all she could think was second world war history and Broadway theatre and music. And yes her 16th birthday wish was to see Hamilton at Broadway and she did. Later is was Law school and then it became Chemistry. Now she's focusing on Computer Sciences but stays fascinated with Neurosciences. Pretty sure she will change her mind before graduation. Hence a liberal arts school like Wellesley that could tolerate her creativity :-).
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