Girls just want to have fun...at computer camp
By: Beth Spencer
Issue date: 8/6/09 Section: Sports
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The 14 high school girls used a program called AgentSheets to design online games. They chose characteristics and created storyboards for games similar to Disney animation, said Linda Sherrell, computer science professor at The University of Memphis.
"Females don't typically go into computer science because they have the perception that it is just programming, and they think they'll be stuck in front of a computer desk all day," she said. "There is so much more to computer science than just programming."
Only 0.3 percent of college freshman females expressed an interest in studying computer science in 2007-an extreme drop from the 4.2 percent of females who were involved with computer science in 1982, Sherrell said.
"There was a big jump in enrollment in the 80s and again in the 90s with the dot-com boom," she said. "Then from 2002 to 2007 there were drastic declines in the amount of women receiving degrees in computer science. In 2007, the (computer science) graduation rate was half what it was during the dot-com boom."
The camp was designed to provide a more accurate perception of computer science careers for females, she said.
"Women are attracted to careers for different reasons," she said. "Males tend to choose careers based on salary levels and prestige, while more women look for jobs with communication."
Many females steer clear of studying computer science because they think it only involves programming, she said. But you also learn other kinds of skills, she said.
"Everyone needs to have skills to solve problems," Sherrell said. "Sometimes it might be with a computer, and sometimes it might be with a brain."
Problems in business and accounting can be solved with software, but computer scientists are needed to solve problems in the science world, such as DNA computing, she said. The security sector also needs computer science experts, she said.