Regarding the dropping out, I think it is (at least partially) due to a lack of positive reinforcement.  Imagine two students, one male and one female, who were both good science students in high school and decide to take CS 101.  They both get a 70% on the first test. The male student will (implicitly or explicitly) be told &quot;shake it off, you&#x27;ll do better on the next one&quot; while the female student will be told &quot;well you tried, maybe CS isn&#x27;t your thing&quot;.  I used to see this a lot in engineering classes, the male students took the failures as a fluke and the female students thought it meant they should do something else.