Why more women in computing is better for both women and computing

Why more women in computing is better for both women and computing

If I asked you to picture a computer programmer, you’d probably conjure up a pretty specific image. He—yes, he—grew up playing video games in the basement, went to an elite university, and breezed through to a job in Silicon Valley.

Over the past few years, we’ve been talking a lot about the need for more women in computing and why fulfilling that need would be better for both women and computing. But real diversity in computer science means more than just changing the gender of the stereotype we have in our heads. It means replacing that stereotype with a much more expansive image of who computer programmers are, where they come from, and what they want.

This was brought home to me recently during a conversation I had with University of Washington computer science students living in TUNE House. Sponsored by TUNE, a mobile marketing company based in Seattle, the program is a fascinating experiment in supporting women coders: a house where eight women in computer-related fields live rent-free and get access to mentors, workshops, and networking opportunities.

Each of the students I talked to told a different story about how she had found her way into the field. Meredith decided not to take a high school computer science (CS) class after her friend said, “Nobody takes that class—it’s just a bunch of dudes.” After she’d been at college for a while, though, she tried it, and it stuck. Now, she’s graduated and begun her first job as a software engineer at Facebook. Cherie did a UW summer program designed to introduce women to coding. Larissa and Karishma met at a Girls Who Code camp in high school. Lillian took UW’s intro to CS on a whim, just because it was a popular class. None of these women had a story that looked like a “traditional” programmer’s path.

As Ed Lazowska, chair of UW Computer Science and Engineering, says, there’s no “silver bullet” to getting more women in tech, so the university is doing many things differently to help attract women to the program and ensure that they thrive. For example, half the teaching assistants for the CS intro course are women, and there’s a weekly seminar for women in the class to talk about gender issues in the field. This kind of broad, thoughtful program design—making the environment more inclusive, creating new pathways, supporting innovators in the field—helps explain why the percentage of female CS graduates at UW is almost twice as high as it is nationally.

The students told me that TUNE House, along with support from UW, gave them space to celebrate not just their successes but also their failures, and that made a huge difference. I get that. By my second year at Duke, almost all of the few women who had started in the computer science department with me had changed majors. I think a big reason was that they struggled while they saw the men around them succeeding with apparent ease (though I learned eventually that the men were having just as hard a time as the women). I think that’s a lot of what keeps women out of tech—the belief that, as a woman, you don’t have permission to fail. The women in TUNE House are learning that that’s not true.

And the tech industry is going to be stronger because of that. Study after study has shown that a more diverse workforce leads to a wider range of products that work better for more people. For example, Aishwarya worked on a project to teach people about ocean pollution. Karishma, meanwhile, created a web browser extension to help users become more aware of the political polarization of the news they consume. I was so impressed by the many different ways the women of TUNE House wanted to apply their expertise.

Women like Meredith, Cherie, Larissa, Karishma, Aishwarya, and the others I met shouldn’t be the exception; they should be the rule—and as I see computing departments like UW graduate more and more women, I have faith that they will be.

I’m excited to speak at the Grace Hopper Celebration for Women in Computing this week, and I can’t wait to hear the stories of some of the thousands of women who will be there. If you’re a woman working in tech, or planning to, I’d love to hear about how you got to where you are. Share photos on social media of the people, places, and things that set you on your path to tech at #ThroughHerEyes.

Luis Monta

Productor Musical - Docente Música

1y

Hola María Flores

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Todd Jackson

Designed and launched the extended MVP of ConnectBy.com , the next generation of social networking.

5y

Everything that you work towards accomplishing, in regards to making a measurable impact on the present and future existence of mankind, can be realized many fold over by increasing global caring. The answer is increasing connecting by people regardless of race, culture, and geographics . Connecting brings caring and the service I have designed and built is for that specific purpose. It is ConnectBy.com https://vimeo.com/195702411 and I welcome collaboration.

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Camille Sutherland

Estate Manager / Personal Assistant (& Animal Rescuer)

6y

APPLICATIONS FOR TUNE HOUSE ARE NOW OPEN for the 2018-19 Academic year! http://scholars.tune.com/ Share with your network!!

Chen Yu

www DOT CasperYC DOT club

6y

Because we CAN

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