Girls Who Code @ Stagg

Hello everyone! For those that do not know me, let me introduce myself. My name is Monica Para and I am currently a Junior at Stagg. I have a desiring passion for Computer Science and recieved multiple recognition on my computing success on the Regional and National level. Anyway, a few months ago my friend, Nur and I created a computer science club here at Stagg in an attempt to get students, specifically girls, interested in computer science/ learning how to code. Unfortunately, we are struggling and we need your help! Just a heads up, this post is extremely long...

Why did we create this club?

I'm going to start with the basics for this. For those that do not know, learning computer science serves as a valuable skill in today’s high-tech powered world. As women represent a small percentage of CS majors and technical or computing fields and the number of computer science related jobs increases, leaving women out. The tech industry is rapidly booming, however this field is heavily dominated by men. There are multiple reasons WHY girls are left out from pursuing or learning computer science mainly due to stereotypes such as 'women are not made to code, only men are.' My friends, there should be no need of a gender gap in computer science(or anything really)- EVERYONE should learn how to code. Whether we like it or not, computer science is the essence of everything: street lights, robots, machines, and websites such as Creatorco, is created by code. There are VERY few programs out here in the community that teach you how to code, let alone there is a lack of interest by the students wanting to learn how to change the world.

I can tell you all the facts, but that is not the point. I think telling my personal story will help explain why I started the club at Stagg. Anyway, I learned how to program during my freshman year, having visions of one day majoring in computer science and possibly changing the world. I pretty much learned how to code from using codeacademy, but that got boring after awhile. I tried to find programs that would expand my coding knowledge, but really, there was nothing out there. Literally there were no coding/cs/tech programs that sparked my interest at all. The worst part is was that there no programs ceased to exist in the Chicago-land area. Nothing. It wasn't until sophomore year when I learned about a coding program at UIC. And you know what that program was called? Girls Who Code! Just by participating in this club, not only did I learn a lot about computer science (which I can write a 10 page essay on) , but I was introduced to this community of girls who had a passion for STEM, fighting for gender equality in these fields. I was astonished to find out that Girls Who Code is a national, nonprofit organization that hosted multiple programs across the United States with one goal in mind: closing the gender gap in STEM for once and for all by giving girls they support they need for their CS education. On the contrary, I never imagined that enrolling in a Saturday program would change me as a person. I mean, who would have thought that a being in a group of 30 girls that shared the same interested as you can change you, create you into a leader, and a role model for future generations to look up to. I was fortunate enough to even be involved with this community at UIC. The connections I had lead me to a Chase Internship during the summer of 2017.

At this point, I probably should not be writing so much ahahah, but you can get the gist that I gained several successes through programming all from Girls Who Code. During that summer, I spent some time researching about the Girls Who Code organization. Through my research and active involvement in the organization, I realized that I wanted to give back to my community by creating a computer science based club where students are able to have a fun time, learn how to code, and ultimately, code projects to help benefit the lives of others. Like I mentioned before, computer science is the backbone of everything we do. Anyway, I was looking at the official Girls Who Code website and I stumbled upon a "club applicaiton" portion of their site. Suprisingly, it is "easy" to start your own Girls Who Code club in your community so I did just that. Let's just say starting a club at Stagg is NEVER easy. I didn't know where to start. What was intimidating for me was that I was the only person who even knew what the heck Girls Who Code was. I couldn't start the club alone. Luckily, my friend, Nur Al-Kodmany, was willing to help me since knew what Girls Who Code was since she participated in their summer program. Once we completed the "club application" form, we haven't heard back from Principal Olsen until 4 months later when it was November... At that point we were screwed because nothing went as plan. We were hoping to get the club up and running in Septmeber, learn Scratch first semester and code apps, visit tech companies, guest speakers all of second semester. We had to compromise what we were going to do that semester. We did our best to promote our Informational Meeting and Hour of Code event, however, on average, we have 8-9 girls that come to our meetings. This was below our expectations and if GWC Headquarters discovered that we didn't "fulfill their contract of having atleast 15 girls in each club meeting" they would cancel their sponsorship with club. Referring back to the question, we created this club to serve as a platform for students here at Stagg to simply learn how to code.

Due to the lack of commitment of participants, CHSD230 is considering on discontinuing this club once Nur and I graduate in 2019.

As presidents and advocators for STEM education, we tried all that we can to promote our club. The sponsors as well as my GWC team are working on how we can recruit potential members to our club and to simply teach students how to code. We were fortunate to have multiple clubs helping us such as Key Club, Girl Talk, and VEX Robotics, but then again, we failed. Slowly but surely, our sponsors believe we can no longer run the club all because of "lack of interest." It hurts to realize that Stagg students do not want to learn how to change the world. Luckily, I was fortunate enough to have the CEO of CreatorCo reach out to me, helping my team expand our Girls Who Code club. We turn to this platform, to help us recruit more members to the Girs Who Code Club here at Stagg. Additionally, the presidents of GWC were willingly kind enough to help CreatorCo expand their business. If you are down, I can create CreatorCo into an app.

The very least anyone can do for Girls Who Code is to spread the word that we have a meeting this Wednesday, May 2, in Room 127. Feel free to contact me if you want to help out with Girls Who Code @ 190448@d230.org .