Meet Some Awesome Teenage Girl Computer Programmers

We'll never be able to change the startup gender ratio until more women get into computer programming at a young age. But what's it actually like to learn computer science as a teenage girl? The New York Observer got eight high schoolers to share their stories.

"At the moment, computer science is most interesting of the offers, and that's what I'm focusing on, to hell with the lack of girls in the field," one explained. Another girl said she "realized comp sci isn't about nerdy boys sitting at computers and coding out nonsense that turns into violent video games and complicated math problem solvers. No, comp sci isn't this at all. Comp sci, as I have found in my classes at Stuy, is a medium for expression, a place for creation and creativity." And for anyone wondering about taking classes, consider these wise words: "writing a program is almost like writing a story (cheesy analogy, I know). There are many ways you can structure it but you have to find the best way, and then when you're done you have a product that actually does something and you created it. And it's probably one of the most gratifying feelings in the world."

We can't wait until Wired features one (or all?) of these women on its cover some day.

Eight Real Tales of Learning Computer Science as a High School Girl [BetaBeat]

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