Unique grad program for bringing women into CS
The word is now out about a unique graduate program designed to bring women into computer science, thanks to an article by Charlie Anders in this week’s San Francisco Bay Guardian. The Mills College Interdisciplinary Computer Science program, which I direct, is aimed at women and men who have a bachelor’s degree in a field other than computer science who want to get into CS or interdisciplinary work. Some of the graduates mentioned in the article are:
- Sheri Wetherby, a former casino worker who became a Microsoft programmer
- Erica Rios, a former labor activist who now works as an Internet project manager at the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology
- Lisa Cowan, who has a BA in anthropology and is now pursuing a CS PhD at UC San Diego
- Constance Connor, a CS instructor at City College of San Francisco
The above photo, not from the article, is of former ICS students Susan Housand and Kiem Sie with a robot they built. Kiem went on to build several more.
On a personal note, I moonlight part-time at Google, which was deservedly named America’s best workplace, and many of my Google co-workers wonder why I don’t leave Mills and work at Google full-time. Charlie’s article does a great job of showing what excites me about teaching.
January 11th, 2007 at 3:05 am
I love your blog ;]
January 11th, 2007 at 10:50 am
I wish this program existed a few years earlier. I returned to school and got a 2nd undergrad degree (B.S. in C.S.). I did really well in the program but now feel limited in the types of Ph.D. programs I can consider due to attending a Cal State.
Glad to hear you’re addressing the critical need to provide a computer science program aimed at women. If I had only been able to ignore the hostile male geek environment when I was 18 I may have done it the first time around.
January 11th, 2007 at 8:36 pm
Inter-disciplinary computer science is needed not just to broaden the base of students coming into the field but also to keep it relevant. Who could have imagined in the early days of ARPANET that computers and internet would be about social networking, online gaming, blogging, ecommerce and entertainment? We need our best computer scientists collaborating with experts in other fields, mostly in the realm of social sciences, to develop new insights and knowledge. I am not suggesting that the “old” computer science of operating systems, programming languages, database systems and networking is passé. Instead, my view is that we need to build on the foundational subjects to address the new research questions that have suddenly become important. I write about all this in my post, Computer Science with a Soul, that you may want to check out here… http://orbitchange.com/blog/2007/01/11/computer-science/
June 14th, 2007 at 7:29 am
[…] Na Mills koledžu, Elen Spertus je pokrenula Interdisciplinary Computer Science program namenjen ženama sa bachelor stepenom obrazovanja koje žele da uđu u CS ili da interdisciplinarnim radom razvijaju projekat. The San Francisco Bay Guardian je napisao odličan članak o programu i mogućnostima koje su ponuđene ženama da se “umešaju” u CS (imamo i članak Ellen pokretača projekta). […]
September 15th, 2007 at 8:34 am
Hi from Seatle, Nice blog posting about Unique grad program for bringing women into CS. I would have to agree with you on this one. I am going to look more into bachelor degree. This Saturday I have time.