Middle school girls learn computer science

Jessica Lin, left, and Crystal Hsieh organized "Techie Girls," a weeklong camp that aims to teach young girls about computer science. COURTESY OF UC IRVINE

In a small lab tucked away in the computer sciences building at UC Irvine, more than 20 middle school-aged girls sat behind computer screens.

With the summer sun beating down just outside, they remained in the air-conditioned room, focused, typing furiously away on their keyboards, trying their small hands at learning the entry-level programming language, Python.

Each had on a bright turquoise shirt, with the words "Techie Girls," across the front. Techie Girls was a weeklong camp meant to inspire girls to develop a love for technology, exposing them to web design, programming and game design. The camp, which the girls paid $50 to attend, ran from July 29 until Friday.

"A lot of them have already got it," Crystal Hsieh, one of the girls putting on the camp, said quietly to her friend, Jessica Lin, smiling as she looked around at the room.

Hsieh and Lin, both recent graduates of Northwood High School, put on the camp, after Crystal won an Aspirations in Computing award from the National Center for Women & Information Technology, which works to correct the imbalance of gender diversity in technology and computing. Crystal then applied for and won a $3,750 grant to put on the Techie Girls camp.

Her mom calls her "techie girl" because of her love for technology, so Hsieh decided to make it the name of the camp.

"I think middle school, or a young age, is when you really need to hook them on computing," said Debra Richardson, a UC Irvine informatics professor and a member of the leadership team for NCWIT. "By high school and college it's very unlikely that they'll get an interest."

Richardson, who is also the founding dean of the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences at UCI, acted as an adult supervisor at the camp.

Richardson said the camp is a part of a pilot program from the NCWIT to create outreach programs to teach young girls about computing.

"There's a stigma for girls in areas like computing even though all the great jobs are there," she said.

Each day of the camp is broken into two parts: what they refer to as "learn sesh," where the girls learn about a particular aspect of computing in a lecture format, and then "work sesh," where the girls get to apply what they learn.

During a "learn sesh," Annabelle Chang and Maggie Yan sat next to each other in the lab, talking about square roots and their trials and tribulations learning to code. Both girls, who are about to start the eighth grade at Sierra Vista Middle School, said they heard about the camp through their school, liked technology and thought they'd try it.

For Maggie, and many of the other girls, the camp was a chance to explore future possibilities.

"I still don't know exactly what I want to be so I like experiencing things, so when I get to that point I'll have more choices," she said.

Several volunteers roamed around the room, sometimes stopping to check if the girls needed help with the programming.

Harvey Coe, one of the volunteers and a junior at University High School, was the lone boy in the room of girls.

His dad knows Crystal's, and thought it would be a good experience for Harvey.

"It's been great," he said. "I get to learn while helping people."

The camp – and the efforts of the NCWIT – is meant to pique the interest of young girls and inspire them to get involved in computing. And it seems to work.

Kerenna Samynathan, an eighth-grader at Sierra Vista Middle School, types away on the keyboard in front of her, functions appearing on her screen as she tries out Python, the new coding language she learned.

Kerenna said she first became interested in computer science after her dad showed her some aspects of coding back when she was in sixth grade. She then took web design as an elective at her middle school.

"I mostly like that you can really make anything with coding," she said, with wide eyes. "And even if it doesn't work at first, you can find the error and try again."

Kerenna has some big dreams. Someday, she wants to be the CEO of Apple, she said with a big grin, her green braces shining.

"Well, this is the place to start, then," UCI professor Richardson said, smiling as she looked at the girls typing away.

Crystal Hsieh and Jessica Lin graduated from Northwood High School in June. They've spent most of the summer planning out the Techie Girls camp before they head off to college in the fall.

Both plan to study computer science, but Crystal will attend UCLA and Jessica will start at UC San Diego.

We caught up with them halfway through the weeklong camp to ask about their experience and their interest in computer science.

Q. What motivated you to apply for the Aspire IT grant to start Techie Girls?

Hsieh: I got an email in June about applying for the grant and my parents encouraged me to go for it. We had to create a budget for it, all the things you'd use the money for ... I actually worked at Girls Inc. for a little bit for a three-day mini camp (for elementary kids) that I created so we kind of used that as a basis. After I sent the proposal in, I asked Jessica to help me do all the really important details after we got the grant.

Q. What got you interested in computer science?

Lin: It basically started with our 10th grade (Advanced Placement) Computer Science class and our teacher, Mr. Olivares, was the best teacher ever. He was really funny and interactive. He basically got us interested ... It was something that is applied math, which is what I've been doing for my life, after that I just went to summer camps for math and computers.

Hsieh: For me, I actually really wanted to do graphics, I was more into web design and all that. But then I learned that I actually do like the coding aspect and more of the math ... so I got more into that.

Q. There's a growing movement to teach young people, especially girls, about coding. Why do you think it's important for young girls to learn about computer science?

Hsieh: What's interesting is that the older generation, like my parents, they have a harder time with it because they're not used to it and they're like, "This is weird; I don't get it." But when you're young, you don't have to worry about it, (you're) just absorbing everything (you) see. You don't see it as a foreign concept; you just take it in and just go for it.

Q. Now that you're headed off to college in the fall, what are your future goals?

Hsieh: I'm more interested in the Apple, Google and more developer tools for mobile applications. But since we haven't actually taken any college courses yet, it's really up in the air right now.

Lin: It feels really awkward because we don't really know that much about computer science because we haven't really had that many opportunities. I've (gone to) a summer camp on artificial intelligence and I think that's cool, but I also like art, so I might be wanting to combine some sort of art and computer science in college.

Q. Do you have any advice for young girls wanting to learn more about computer science?

Hsieh: Keep trying. Because, just like coding, a lot of things don't work the first time you try it.

Lin: If they want more exposure, then there's actually a lot of computing camps and a lot of things on the Internet you can teach yourself, too. Just go for it.

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