Smashing Stereotypes at Girls Who Code

Since 2022, 90,000 young women in all 50 states have gone through a Girls Who Code form, workshop or event. Founder and CEO Reshma Saujani is determined to do no less than close the gender gap in the engineering workforce, change the image of "what a programmer looks like" and, in essence, build the biggest pipeline of female engineers for the future.

PCMag recently visited Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California, which was hosting a two-week Girls Who Code Campus Program. The prestigious private college was founded in 1955 at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains, and maintains a pocket-sized enrollment of less than 1,000 students. It's renowned for turning out well-rounded, tech-savvy alums. Scientific discipline majors have to choose at least 11 liberal arts courses and so many graduates cease up working abroad, having studied something like Japanese, music theory, and advanced robotics. Malous Kossarian, who we interviewed about her activism app, worked at IBM Watson after graduating from HMC, for example.

Although much of the campus has a distinct 50s-era, masonry-heavy Aztec vibe, Girls Who Code took over a classroom in one of the newer buildings effectually an blusterous atrium. There, 13 girls ages 15 to 18 prepped to nowadays their newly congenital apps on an iOS simulator.

Girls Who Code

The room was full of long tables covered in systems network architecture drawings, iPhones, Mac laptops, pasted up bios of various (female) Stalk heroes, and a blackboard chalked up with the classic software engineering chore listing (dev, examination, code freeze, reflection).

Girls Who Code hired Dr. Aashita Kesarwani, a mathematics post-grad from Tulane Academy, for this course. She kicked off the presentation portion by asking the starting time team to describe, demo, and reply questions near their app, Faba Fitness.

There was some giggling at commencement simply, to exist fair, it's weird being told a journalist will be interviewing you lot all later—no pressure. Only afterward they got into their stride, the Faba Fitness team demoed a solid app product centered around salubrious living and wellness tips.

Then Dr. Kesarwani suddenly interrupted the team's flow: "Did yous program in some constraints?" she asked, peering at the simulator on the screen.

Girls Who Code

"Aye," said one of the girls, demonstrating an animation built into the navigation concept.

"Simply we hadn't taught you that part yet in Xcode with Swift," said Dr. Kesarwani, amazed.

There was shuffling at the front and so one girl volunteered. "I'd seen it in something else, liked it, so went online to work out how to do it. It was fiddly at first, just, information technology's okay now."

That's what courses like these are for—teaching troubleshooting, out-of-the-box thinking and instilling bravery and chutzpah in fledging geeks. Dr. Kesarwani nodded approvingly and called upwards the next team.

The MyPage app was designed to allow users to segment their friends into one contacts management concept. They built a back-end that managed multiple logins across various social media channels into one app. Once more, it turned out that when they needed to learn how to exercise something not in this week's course schedule, they went online and figured it out.

Finally, the Pax team was up. It was an imaginative and touching projection, which—equally the squad explained—came out of thinking almost moods (both positive and negative) and the music you might want to hear, books to read or activities to engage in. They'd congenital out playlists and linked from inside the app to YouTube videos and, every bit with the other teams, congenital out functionality that wasn't part of the course, as needed.

Tools Learned

Equally the girls returned to their next task, we took Dr. Kesarwani aside to inquire her a few questions about why she signed upward to teach this program.

"I wanted to do it last year only I was finishing upward my PhD and just didn't have the fourth dimension," she explained. "Then one of my colleagues at Tulane University told me she'd been an instructor and recommended I use, so I did. I savor mentoring, and these girls are at such a adept historic period to become exposure to both advanced concepts, and people already studying, or working, in calculator scientific discipline. I want to make a difference."

Girls Who Code

During the two-week form, the students larn the nuts of iOS programming (using Xcode for Swift); circuits, and the GWC Core4 programming concepts: loops, variables, conditionals, and functions. The cost is approximately $2,000 for each daughter, which includes all materials, tutoring staff, accomodation, and meals (scholarships are available, sponsored by Deloitte).

"I'm actually proud of what they've done," said Dr. Kesarwani, looking around at the classroom full of girls quietly working on debugging software and adding to their app code.

Large Entrepreneurial Dreams

Every bit the girls were by and large all under 18, we interviewed them as a group, asking various questions to see what they'd liked the most about this experience, how it helped them frame their futurity, and whether it was actually their idea to sign up.

To the last question, yep. Not one had been bribed past a parent desperate to produce the next Mark Zuckerberg or Dr. Cynthia Breazeal.

All the girls said they'd especially enjoyed the collaborative nature of the work. Functioning as a squad, they said, was welcome relief from the usual teen pressures of private achievement and exam results.

Levels of expertise varied—some had already studied computer scientific discipline and were familiar with Python, JavaScript, C, Ruby, and front-end development; two accept secured early university placements and 1 has an internship at Google lined upward. Others were completely new to the unabridged field, but all appeared to catch on quickly as the days progressed.

Girls Who Code

A couple girls were already large gamers, citing hours playing Roblox and Overwatch, not simply for fun, but to work out how they were programmed. Interestingly, when asked which companies they wanted to work for, most shrugged and said they'd rather exist entrepreneurs, which doesn't bode well for major tech giants grabbing these smart young brains.

One has already ready her own small-scale company, was developing apps and games, and knew to own the intellectual holding so she can sell her work and continue to forge her own path.

Still, in a cheering prospect for the future of national security, many were intrigued past fighting cybercrime and several professed a passion for cryptology. When we asked why, there were a few darting glances and shuffling of anxiety, until ane dauntless soul said: "I've seen all the Jason Bourne movies and all the stuff almost the CIA and, well, it's merely really cool."

It wasn't all rich girls attending the course, either. Several had washed their homework, worked out the armed services would pay for higher if they signed up, and might well end up in Augusta, Georgia, at US Ground forces Cyber Command.

Summing Up

There are lots of conversations going on in the educational space almost unmarried-sex schooling, and it'due south clear at that place was a genuinely supportive camaraderie going on amongst the attendees at Girls Who Code.

Whether it's because they were gratuitous to get on with the informatics job at hand without the hormonal hideousness of teenage life intruding, or because they were self-selecting in their dear of geekdom, who knows? What'south articulate is that you can't pic yourself becoming something—like an astronaut, particle physicist, computer scientist, engineer, rocket scientist, or roboticist unless you see someone who looks similar you already doing that gig. That'south just basic psychology.

But exposure at a crucial age, to the right concepts, before making college course choices, is truly essential. That'due south where Girls Who Code is making great strides—showing these students that annihilation is possible and providing the tools, teachers, and determination to get them there.