Kelsey Robinson SOUTH BRUNSWICK — Three young women from South Brunswick have graduated from a seven-week “Girls Who Code” program at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT).
Kelsey Robinson, a junior at South Brunswick High School; Shruti Warrier, a senior at South Brunswick High School; and Janet Chen, a junior at The Hill School in Pennsylvania, were among more than three dozen students from throughout New Jersey who graduated from the summer immersion program on Aug. 27.
The students completed 300 hours of instruction in web development and design, robotics and mobile development with mentorship and exposure led by the industry’s top female engineers and entrepreneurs.
“This movement has been going around the country,” Shruti said. “It helps you think very logically in your approach to a problem and think step-by-step to find the quickest and most effective solution.”
Janet Chen As part of the program, the students were able to visit BNY Mellon, Verizon headquarters and the NBA headquarters to observe different careers, speak with entrepreneurs and experience firsthand how to gather information and create a website. They also spoke with an intern at NJIT.
At the end of the course, the students spent two weeks working on their final projects, such as making a community app that adds events into a database, and creating a Girls Knight game where a female protagonist battles cat callers.
Currently, women make up the majority of the labor force nationwide, but hold only 25 percent of the jobs in computing and technical fields, according to Girls Who Code. By 2020, there will be 1.4 million jobs available in the computing related fields, but women educated in the U.S. are only on pace to filling 3 percent of these positions.
Shruti Warrier Girls Who Code is a national nonprofit organization working to close the gender gap in the technology and engineering sectors. With the support of the Verizon Foundation, the computer science course was offered for the first time in Newark this summer.
“There are so many opportunities girls aren’t taking advantage of because no one introduced them to something like this,” Janet said. “Women need to be part of the progression because we bring a whole different perspective.”
The girls noted that in a male-dominated field, women can enhance video games to make them more unisex, or even dispel the stereotypes that programmers are nerdy and stay in their rooms all day.
“We are all outgoing. We are all social,” Janet said.
Contact Jennifer Amato at [email protected].