Young women discover computer science
During the CSNOW taster week, 37 young women visited the Department of Computer Science for a week. They coded their own app, met students and researchers and created a basis for choosing a field of study.
From 10 to 14 February, 37 young women visited the Department of Computer Science. During the taster week for female high school graduates, which takes place once a semester, they got to learn more about computer science and its career opportunities. The diverse programme was organised and run by the Network of Women in Computer Science (CSNOW).
The network, which dedicates itself to the advancement of women at the Department of Computer Science, has been conducting the taster week since 1993. In 2001, the programme was awarded the “Knights of Communication” prize by the Swiss federal government. The goal of the taster week is to make computer science more tangible to female high school graduates.
The programme consists of talks by doctoral students and lecturers, a visit to an IT company and a number of programming workshops. Using their newly acquired programming skills, the young women develop their own app in small groups, which they present to the other participants on the final day of the taster week.
Alexandra Ion, co-leader of CSNOW and postdoctoral researcher at the Interactive Geometry Lab, has assumed responsibility for the taster week for a second time now. She is delighted with the participants. “These young women have been very engaged and interested throughout the week”, she says. “Even during the breaks, they kept approaching us with questions.” Not even the traditional cake and drinks on Friday afternoon distracted the participants: some of them still kept asking the organisers technical questions.
The participants themselves also enjoyed the taster week and learned a lot from it. Some discovered their enthusiasm for computer science, while others were able to exclude it as a field of study. Everyone benefitted from the experience.
Lillie Roberts: “The week was very eventful – I was looking forward to coming here every morning. ETH is very advanced in the field of computer science and everyone here is ready to help. I have learned that with hard work, anything is possible. At first, it sounds so difficult to program an app yourself. But when you study the theory and work on it, it is much easier than you think. Studying computer science is definitely an option for me.”
Ravinder Kaur: “I registered for the taster week on recommendation of my mathematics and computer science teachers. It was quite impressive to develop an app from scratch. I also enjoyed the visit to Google – there are more playrooms there than desks. But I found out that a pure computer science degree is nothing for me. I'm looking for a more practical approach and would therefore much rather study business informatics.”
Leonie Gritzan: “I wanted to know if I would enjoy studying computer science and whether it would be like I imagine it. After the taster week, I must say that I like it very much. Thanks to the various talks, I have seen that it is interesting and versatile. All the people here were very helpful. And I also enjoyed the programming. I have not yet decided on a field of study, but computer science is definitely on my list.”
Tina Ho: “I have always been interested in computer science, but I didn't have the motivation to learn programming. I was surprised that at the end of the week, we had a finished product in our hands in the form of our app. You look at it and think, 'I did that'. That does make me a little bit proud. I've wanted to study at ETH since I was little. Right now, I'm undecided between computer science and computational science.”
Qatrunada Tedjasukmana: “The taster week was my first coding experience. I was amazed that even a simple button needs a lot of code. You need to really structure your thoughts and know exactly what you want in order to write this code correctly. I liked the international atmosphere at ETH. The people were open and very patient with us. I want to study medicine, but I could imagine having programming as a hobby.”vorstellen.»