Efforts have been made by many organizations and universities to find out the cause of the underrepresentation of women in computer science and to turn this trend around, but one of the only groups to indicate improvements is Carnegie Mellon University. The paper “Women in Computer Science: The Carnegie Mellon Experience” explains how the university successfully raised the representation of women in computer science from a meager 7% to 40% in five years.
The university discovered that many of the same reasons accounted for lack of women as those given in “Gender Differences in Computer Science Students”, specifically the experience gap, lack of confidence, and peer culture. Two other reasons that CMU cited was curriculum and teaching faculty. Interestingly, the paper argues that the department’s curriculum tends to favor males over females, since males are more likely to come out of high school with previous programming experience and the first few years of study are heavily programming based. Many of the early courses assume that students “already know the requisite programming language or that they can pick it up on their own.” Just as the other paper argued, this one states that “females with grades equal to or better than those of their male peers have less confidence.”
It is evident that women become discouraged from joining the field early in their education due to the lower percentage of women that take the CS AP exam in high school, so the university decided to target high school females. In a joint program between university employees and CS Advanced Placement teachers, dubbed 6APT, the university hoped to combat the cause of female underrepresentation at its source. This program educates teachers and students about the gender gap in computer science.
Another effort was made by CMU admissions officers to send the message that no prior programming experience is necessary to be admitted into the program. Many studies explain that men are more likely to begin programming and studying computers at a much earlier age than women, which causes many women to become discouraged during their first year. Unfortunately, many women even come to the belief that they are admitted into the program solely because of their gender.
Finally, the Department of Computer Science at CMU created the SCS Advisory Council which organizes events to encourage young women to join computer science, similar to WICS at UT. Some activities include a Big Sister/Little Sister program and student/faculty dinners, both of which have also been executed by WICS. The paper points out that even though efforts have been made by numerous organizations to attract women to computer science, their department is one of the only ones to find success. WICS holds many of the same events as the SCS Advisory Council, but I think the one place they fall short is in targeting younger girls. WICS has tried to hold events at high schools in the past, but I think CMU has proven that a much more dedicated, consistent effort is necessary. One or two events is simply not enough to convince young girls of the benefits of joining computer science.
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