Julia Geist is only 15 years old, but she has a job big enough for a grownup. In fact, she has two. While she was growing up, Julia spent her free time hanging out in the library using the computer. A librarian noticed her and offered a suggestion that changed Julia’s life: Join “Girls Who Code.”
Girls Who Code is a network of after-school clubs. Volunteer instructors teach girls computing skills and programming languages such as Python, HTML, and JavaScript. The students build apps and finish the year with a large project. The 20 U.S. clubs have big funders including Google, Twitter, and AT&T. Those companies have a reason to get girls into coding. They need them to work for them someday.
In middle school, 74% of girls express interest in science, technology, engineering, and math. But when choosing a college major, just 0.3% of high school girls choose computer science.
Why do girls lose their interest in science and tech? Google studied that question for a year and finally concluded that girls stop liking science because no one teaches them how to pursue it. Could they be encouraged? The solution was the same one the librarian gave to Julia Geist: Girls Who Code.
During her first weeks in the club, Julia learned to program robots in Python, visited female software engineers, and began to dream of a future in which she created things. Now Julia has two web-design jobs that help support her family. She’s also teaching her dad how to code in hopes that he will one day work as an IT professional instead of as a substitute custodian.
Girls all over the country have joined Girls Who Code—and it’s turning out to be a wise choice. Computer science is a fast-growing field in America. By 2020, 1.4 million computer specialist jobs are expected to open up. But there aren’t enough people to fill them right now. So when the computer-coding girls are ready to make a living, the world will be more than ready for them.
