Women in CS: Mudd's story

… presented by Zach Dodds

Christine Alvarado Ran Libeskind-HadasMaria Klawe

Kathleen Schaefer

Where Are the Women?

Percentage of Undergraduate CS Degrees Awarded to Females(National Data Source: Taulbee Survey)

Where Are HMC's Women?

Percentage of Undergraduate CS Degrees Awarded to Females(National Data Source: Taulbee Survey)

Here!

Percentage of Undergraduate CS Degrees Awarded to Females(National Data Source: Taulbee Survey)

What changes did we make?

A new IntroCS course

Grace Hopper Conference for first-semester students

Summer research for first-year students

Community

Curriculum

Contributions

increasing importance

Four undergraduate years: ~190 students each

6 science/engineering majors:

Not many first-year choices, butevery student must take and pass IntroCS

Mascot:

Old CS1

public static void main( String[] argh )

Students liked this coursewho already liked CS

abstract(ion) art

| |****| |****| | | || |****| |****| | | || |****| |****| | | || |****| |****| | | | 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 Choose a light: 2

| | |****| | | | || | |****| | | | || | |****| | | | || | |****| | | | | 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 Choose a light: 1

|****|****| | | | | ||****|****| | | | | ||****|****| | | | | ||****|****| | | | | | 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 Choose a light: 0You win!

lights out

New CS 1

Attract all students

GO

AL

S

Python & pairing

and cookies!

New CS 1

Attract all students

Tout and "de-magic" CS

GO

AL

S

Python & pairing

assembly language

circuits

and cookies!

New CS 1

Attract all students

Tout and "de-magic" CS

Prepare for CS 2, CS 3, … SchemeJava

PrologJFLAP

C++

CS 2 CS 3

GO

AL

S

Python & pairing

assembly language

circuits

and cookies!

Weeks Paradigm Samples of the labs and assignments

1-3 functional integration, random walks, ciphers

4-6 hardware recursion in assembly, 4-bit multiplier

7-9 imperative Markov text generation, Conway's life

10-12 objects/classes Connect Four player, Date calculator

13-15 CS theory uncomputability, finite-state machines

Course Content: breadth

functional hardware imperative objects/classes

… everybody likes something !

Course Structure: support

pre-2006 2006 ~

75min lecture 75min lecture

75min lab 75min lecture

60min review 120min lab

50-student sections,randomly assigned

50-student sections,assigned by experience

required

incentivized

placement

Course Structure: support

pre-2006 2006 ~

75min lecture 75min lecture

75min lab 75min lecture

60min review 120min lab

50-student sections,randomly assigned

50-student sections,assigned by experience

required

incentivized

placement

Tracks: Experienced vs. Inexperienced

Welcome students w/o experience and challenge those w/ background.

Section-switching OK Labs shared by all

run-length encodingrun-length vs. Huffman

Assignment choice

Connect Four HostConnect Four AI

Assignments overlap, then diverge

black gold

Grace Hopper Conf.,

'07

12 students

CS Community: GHC

Interest is infectious…

GHC '09

… and self-sustaining!

Four of HMC's 40 (!) first-year women at

GHC '11, with mentor Martha Cuenca, who is second from left.

GHC '11

Summer research for first-years

2007-9: 30 women in summer projects, sponsored in various ways

Summer research for first-years…

Pam, Sabreen, and Becky working for

10 weeks in our windowless lab --

adorned with demotivational posters -- on a

robot for a scavenger hunt.

… leads to future years!

The same team, now juniors, showing off

their entry in Portland, OR.

Contributions

The team's robot, Serenity

Results: Retaining majors

these are incoming years

graduation year

2007

32% 30% 44%

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

women as % of CS majors

41%

i.e. t

otal

pop

ulat

ion

of w

omen

and

men

separately

Results: Attitudes CS Experience Survey

Participants (n=449; 57% response rate): All students in entering classes 2005-08 All CS major alumni, entering classes 2003-04

GHC Survey Response rates:

2007: 64% 2008: 79% 2009-on: 100%

Reasons for Choosing CSWhat are all the experiences that led you to choose a CS

major?

0.0% 20.0% 40.0% 60.0% 80.0% 100.0%

Experiences before college

CS1

CS2

Research after freshman year

GHC conference

Interactions with CS professors

Interactions with CS majors

Other

Male Female

Reasons for Choosing CSWhat are all the experiences that led you to choose a CS

major?

0.0% 20.0% 40.0% 60.0% 80.0% 100.0%

Experiences before college

CS1

CS2

Research after freshman year

GHC conference

Interactions with CS professors

Interactions with CS majors

Other

Male Female

Reasons for Choosing CSWhat is the single MOST IMPORTANT experience that led you to

choose a CS or CS/ Math major?

0.0% 10.0% 20.0% 30.0% 40.0% 50.0%

Experiences before college

CS 1

CS 2

Other CS course in college

Summer research after freshman year

Interactions with CS professors

Interactions with CS majors

Other

Female

Male

Research Experiences: Building Confidence "I didn't realize how much [research] I could

accomplish after just one frosh-level CS class!"

"Doing research made me much more confident about my skills and knowledge in CS."

Keys for HMC: Curriculum

Goals of the first course should be First, be as engaging as possible Next, offer as much personalized choice as possible Then, be as challenging as possible

Separate those with and without experience Helps those with experience: challenge, maturity Helps those without: confidence, pacing

Keys for HMC: Community A little funding goes a (pretty) long way

Cost: $500-$900/student depending on location (4 per room is OK!)

Regional celebrations: CWIC-SC '12 Students should attend technical sessions Organize trip over the prior summer Pre-trip student orientation/Post-trip reunion

Keys for HMC: Contributions Choose projects with accessible outcomes

Student contests (e.g., robotics) User studies/data analysis Game development (PyGame)

Don't underestimate students' abilities! Team up the students:

With other first-year students With more experienced students

Meet with students regularly (twice a day) Then, let them go for a couple days (now!)

"CS for all" benefits all

"CS for all" benefits all

and cookies never hurt!

"CS for all" benefits all

Robotics, too: from 5% to 45% women

"CS for all" benefits all

Reasons for Choosing CSWhat are all the experiences that led you to choose a CS

major?

0.0% 20.0% 40.0% 60.0% 80.0% 100.0%

Experiences before college

CS1

CS2

Research after freshman year

GHC conference

Interactions with CS professors

Interactions with CS majors

Other

Male Female

Grace Hopper: Changing Perceptions

2007 2008 2009

Attending GHC was a positive experience 7 6.54 6.48

Attending GHC gave me a better understanding of CS 5.75 5.83 6

Attending GHC changed my perception of the CS culture 5.91 5.59 5.58

Attending GHC increased my desire to take another CS course 5.78 4.82 5.28

Attending GHC increased my desire to major in CS 4.98* 4.54* 5

* No significant increase above neutral

1=strongly disagree; 4=neutral; 7=strongly agree

Results: Retention

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

Pe

rce

nt

of

tota

l p

op

ula

tio

n,

by

ye

ar

Women majors Women considerers

Men majors Men considerers

Results: Retention

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

Per

cen

t o

f to

tal

po

pu

lati

on

, b

y ye

ar

Women majors Women considerers Women interested

Men majors Men considerers Men interested