俱乐部 like Girls Who Code and InFInite Stem offer opportunities to build tech skills in a supportive space

by Abby Ben-Ur ' 25, the 多边形

阀杆(科学, 技术, 工程, and math) related fields have been historically male-dominated. “女性几乎占美国人口的一半.S. Workforce but Only 27% of 阀杆 Workers,” according to Pew Research Center. 

 在保利, an introductory 技术 class that includes coding is required for all high school students to graduate. Students also have coding opportunities through the Data Science and Game Design classes and the Coding Club. 的re are also opportunities to code in an exclusively female-identifying environment at Girls Who Code.

Girls Who Code provides a space for women at all levels of coding to come in and learn. 玛丽莎·特里奥拉，24岁她是“编程女孩”(Girls Who Code)的学生领袖 的 Polygon, “We would like to welcome and support club members of all levels! We have had club members who haven’t taken any CS classes and others who are in the highest CS classes. We want to create a space where anyone can participate and learn regardless of their experience.” 

Girls Who Code meets in the Maker Space during club blocks and they are looking for new project ideas as they learn GIT, a coding language that will allow the members to collaborate on future projects. 安娜卡西亚·克拉克，25岁, 俱乐部的成员, 说这个项目, 当决定, “would definitely be something that would benefit Poly or a larger world issue.”

“Girls Who Code is an organization that has been around for close to 10 to 15 years outside of Poly and is committed to bringing girls into computer science. 自2015年以来，我们一直是保利的一个俱乐部,”琼·贝尔福德说, the Chair of the Computer and Information Science Department and the faculty advisor for Girls Who Code. “Having spaces in 阀杆 that are explicitly for female-identifying students is really important because women are historically misrepresented in 阀杆. This is really a place for them to build comradery in a non-competitive space, 一种姐妹情谊, 以及一些良好的人际关系,贝尔福德说. 

“Being female in the 阀杆 field definitely plays into your experience… You could experience more discrimination simply because of your gender and people might see you as inferior and they might doubt your abilities. I feel like they made Girls Who Code to encourage women to spill into the 阀杆 field despite the things that fight against them,克拉克说。.

“If there’s someone who’s telling you that you can’t do this, don’t listen to them. You have the ability to use your smarts and your experience to create something that could be beautiful or new — we need more people like that.”

安娜卡西亚·克拉克，25岁

的re are also other groups that are committed to fostering a space for female-identifying students to come and learn. InFInite Stem (the capitalized “FI” stands for female-identifying) is a non-profit organization whose mission is featured at Poly by Belford. This group brings female students across the Middle and 上学校s together to learn about women in 阀杆-related fields outside of Poly. “What we aim to achieve is exposure to women who are experts in their various fields. For example, last year we took a class trip to a virology lab at Columbia Presbyterian. 实验室的人是安妮·莫斯科纳博士. She does work on viruses and how to prevent a virus from entering a cell. She was wonderful and invited anyone who wanted to from the 上学校 to work at her all-women lab,”贝尔福德说。.

While Data Science and Game Design are relatively new courses, there have been many 阀杆 classes that have been required for Poly students since the school’s start, 比如数学和科学. 虽然这些课程总体上是性别平衡的, some students have noticed a difference in the gender balance of required 阀杆 classes and not required ones. 安东尼娅·史密斯迈尔，25岁 is an avid 阀杆 student and is currently taking a class called Object Oriented Programming. “是我和班上另外两个女孩. Even though I enjoy it it can be very discouraging to pursue a path like this because of this gender gap,史密斯迈尔说. 

然而, 在史密斯迈尔斯的高级生物课上, 她注意到，“与编码相比, the gender [of the students in Advanced Biology] is mostly balanced, 就像化学一样. I think this is because these courses aren’t optional so most women aren’t discouraged. I don’t think it’s viewed as especially strange or unique for a girl to pursue science in society as it is with coding.”

数学老师 维多利亚Stawowy-Mokos 所述, “的re definitely is a difference in the way men and women are treated in 阀杆 fields, but I think that is most prominent in workplaces where men outnumber women. 不幸的是, this can cause women to participate less in their workplaces, 错过了让别人听到自己想法的机会.“虽然阀杆领域是男性主导的, stawow - mokos是一名教师, 哪个领域是女性主导的. She says that part of the reason that she became a math teacher was because she “was fortunate enough to have a teacher that encouraged me to have a voice in the classroom and one that fostered my learning of math.” 

“If there’s someone who’s telling you that you can’t do this, don’t listen to them. You have the ability to use your smarts and your experience to create something that could be beautiful or new — we need more people like that. People need to start seeing that women have the ability to be a part of something great. I’d say if you want to do it then do it and show them that they’re wrong,” Clarke said.

注意: 本文最初发表于 多边形2023年3月刊.