CSTERHOOD, UNITE!

By Niharika Vattikonda

Thomas Jefferson High School of Science and Technology (TJHSST), Virginia has seen a wave of encouraging girls to be involved in computer science for the past few years. Coding Lady Colonials, sponsored by Computer Science teacher Ria Galanos, provides a friendly yet encouraging atmosphere to motivate girls (and boys!) in learning various aspects of coding.
 
Although students are required to take Foundations of Computer Science, an introductory course in Java, continued retention of students, particularly girls, is challenging. The increased exposure is not enough to increase the number of girls in upper-level computer science classes, including mobile and web app development, parallel computing, and artificial intelligence.

Thus, TJHSST seniors, Juliana Bain, Anna Klaussen and Ria Chakrabarti founded CSterhood, an organization designed to give freshman girls in their computer science classes access to both their entry-level peers and older students [in advanced CS electives or labs]. Female students sign up at the beginning of the year and are placed into various families, named by computer science languages. For example, in my JavaScript family, there are about six freshmen and an equal number of upperclassmen. We mentor younger students, helping them with any problems they may face, from coding “Hello, World” in Java to “showing that obnoxious boy in class who’s boss.”
 
However, the CSterhood program also includes multiple activities for all the families to participate in as one large group of girls in computer science. At the launch party in October, students were assigned to their families, and after some introductions, the first challenge was announced. The first challenge was:

You have numbers 1-1000. They are all in order. One number is missing. How do you find the missing number?

Using Slack, a team communication software, students worked both in their families and with each other to find three possible algorithms to solve the challenge, at which point they were given another challenge to work on. Although the challenges don’t require code in certain languages, the vision is to work on understanding fundamental computer science principles, such as sorting, that are critical to success in future classes.
 
Juliana said, “When you’re learning Karel and simple Java, it’s difficult to envision all the things that can be accomplished with programming.” She and Anna intend to show girls what they can accomplish with programming, encouraging them to go beyond the graduation requirements in pursuing computer science courses. They hope that “CSterhood will strengthen the girls-in-tech subset of the TJ community. TJ is above industry standards in terms of % of girls pursuing CS but we can do better!”

Photo credits: Juliana Bain (Co-founder of CSterhood)

About the Author
Niharika Vattikonda is currently a sophomore at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Northern Virginia – she loves biology and computer science. She recently completed a yearlong freshman research project on the effect of electromagnetic fields on E. coli. She first was exposed to Computer Science in middle school, when she learned coding in HTML/CSS, studied Java in freshman year, and is now learning app development on her own. Niharika enjoys STEM outreach, starting science clubs for girls at elementary schools and volunteering at science fairs and hackathons. When she’s not coding or writing for Scientista, Niharika enjoys debating, participating in Model United Nations, singing, and writing for her own blog, Teen Thoughts on Politics.

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