Girls Who Code: First Meeting a Success!

 By Kavya Kamath

On November 18th, the Girls Who Code club launched its first official meeting of the school year! Priding itself on being a low-stress, casual environment for all girls to code, this organization is open to beginners who’ve never looked at code before, to those in AP Computer Science. The club’s mission stresses the importance of coding in the real world and fixing the gender gap in tech fields. As it currently stands, only about a quarter of all computing jobs are held by women.

For those interested in joining, the club exists to promote learning about coding simply for the sake of learning, and is nothing like a classroom. In fact, at the introductory meeting (which was just about as lecture-filled as the club is going to get) club founders Sarah Bargefrede and Laurel Ferguson made a point to make time for breakout rooms, setting up accounts with Repl.it (the IDE to be used for all coding projects through the club), and having beginners like myself, who have never even looked at code before, run their first program!

Sarah and Laurel created the club because while in middle school, neither saw themselves pursuing a career in computer science. With television shows, movies, books, and other forms of media rarely portraying women in computer science roles, it’s hard for young girls to imagine themselves in computer science careers . In fact, Sarah herself said that her current inclination towards computer science all stems back to one fateful day in 8th grade, when she checked off a box on an exam indicting her ‘interest’ in computer science, which was really just lack of interest in the other options (biomedical science and architecture/engineering). 

Now, both girls are powerhouses in the computer science track of SHS’ STEM academy, and love to code. “I was lucky enough to get that opportunity,” Sarah said after the first Girls Who Code Meeting, and she wanted to extend that opportunity to other girls, in all grade levels, in a purposeful way. Female inclusion in STEM shouldn’t come from chance, but, rather, through intentional efforts on behalf of those who have influence over young girls to push them to pursue these rewarding and lucrative careers.

In future meetings, the club is currently looking forward to Hackathons, members creating their own programs, and much more! For anyone interested in coding, or even just curious about the world of coding, the classroom code is nysj2ll and club meetings are every Wednesday at 1:45.  The next meeting is this Wednesday, December 2nd. We can’t wait to see you there!