One Program Encourages Young Female Students To Pursue Their Interests In The Computer Science Field

STARKVILLE, Miss. (WCBI)-The release of acclaimed movie Hidden Figures, has helped shine more light on women working in the computer science field, and how much harder they have to work in order to be taken seriously.

Saturday, a group of female middle school students had a chance to be a part of a computer Science camp at Mississippi State University.

“I want to learn more about how to operate computers,” said Makenzie Cunningham, middle school who took part in Saturday’s program.

Cunningham, along with these other bright students, have big dreams of one day working in the field of computer science.

“I had wanted to be like a computer lab teacher,” said Turkyia Lawrence, sixth grader who took part in Saturday’s program.

So, to help them develop the necessary skills, the students came out to be a part of Mississippi State’s computer science program.

“I’m part of an organization called ProjectCSGirls which has a mission of spreading love of computer science to young girls, middle schooled girls,” said Sarah Darrow, the program’s instructor.

Dorrow worked with the girls hands on and taught them a variety of things such as mobile app development and game development.

 
“We learned like how you delete and operate the things that you have to control on your computer,” said Cunningham.

 
“I learned how to operate a computer and set up my own email account,” Lawrence explained. “I learned how to put things in order and how a computer works.”

“Women are very under represented in the field of computer science,” Darrow described.

Darrow said historically women have always been under represented in the computer science field.

She also said movies like Hidden Figures help shine a light on the difficulties women have to overcome while working in the field.

“It’s been hard getting more girls into it because they’re not encouraged to as much as maybe males are,” said Darrow.

That’s why Darrow said it’s important to encourage girls at a young age to pursue any interests in this field.

“I want the girls to have a confidence in their ability to be in the computer science field and to pursue computer science activities and obviously have an interest in it, and if they’ve had an interest in it before to be more motivated to pursue that interest,” she said.

MSU partnered with ProjectCSGirls to put on the program.