糖心Vlog传媒

Summer camp encourages girls to pursue careers in computer science

Looking over a room filled with 15 bright Arkansas girls who are raptly focused on designing websites with the computer coding skills they learned during an all-girls coding camp is a beautiful sight to Thomas Wallace. As a senior instructor of information science at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Wallace is saddened by the lower number of female students in his classes. 鈥淲e have a hard time attracting women in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) field,鈥� Wallace said. 鈥淭his camp is a great opportunity to expose girls to the STEM disciplines.鈥� In an effort to interest more girls in pursuing STEM majors in college, the 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock George W. Donaghey College of Engineering and Information Technology began an all-girls coding camp in 2016 for junior high school students. In the camp鈥檚 second year, students learned about three coding languages (HTML, CSS, and JavaScript), web development and web design skills, as well as copyright laws and how to use third-party licensed materials during the July 23-28 camp. Camper Karina Batra, a student at Fulbright Junior High School in Bentonville, used her new knowledge to create a website with craft projects for people of all skill levels. With her parents and older brother working in computer-related fields, Batra has plans to major in computer science and work at a technology company after college. Attending the coding camp at 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock helped Batra build upon the skills she is already developing by learning python at home. 鈥淚鈥檝e had a passion for coding for a while now,鈥� Batra said. 鈥淎ll of my family is in computer-related careers. I wanted to see how women are promoted in the field of computer science.鈥� Elizabeth Polk, a camp assistant and 2017 computer science graduate of 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock, said she is encouraged to see girls interested in computer science. 鈥淚 was the only girl in many of my classes,鈥� Polk said. 鈥淕irls are more cautious when going into computer science fields. We are trying to show girls that they can do this.鈥� Participants included:

• 听听听听听Marlissa Archie, seventh-grader at Hot Springs Middle School
• 听听听听听Taylor Ballard, eighth-grader from Little Rock
• 听听听听听Karina Batra, seventh-grader at Fulbright Junior High School
• 听听听听听Naomi Choy, seventh-grader at Ruth Doyle Middle School
• 听听听听听DeAndra Grice, seventh-grader from Maumelle
• 听听听听听Amanda He, seventh-grader at Lisa Academy West
• 听听听听听Alison Jang, eighth-grader at Washington Junior High School
• 听听听听听Alyssa Joseph, eighth-grader at North Little Rock Middle School
• 听听听听听Briana Lewis, eighth-grader at Bethel Middle School
• 听听听听听Avery Nelson, eighth-grader at Greenbrier Junior High School
• 听听听听听Sydney Minor, eighth-grader at Greenbrier Junior High School
• 听听听听听Riley Montague, seventh-grader at Pulaski Academy
• 听听听听听Luna Mae Solleder, seventh-grader at Hot Springs Middle School
• 听听听听听Eureka Smith, seventh-grader at Hot Springs Middle School

The camp, which is free to participants thanks to generous donations, was sponsored by Acxiom, Alliance Rubber Company, AT&T, Entergy, Emerging Analytics Center, Mainstream Technologies, Southwest Power Pool, 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock Department of Information Science, and Windstream.