Girl, let's learn programming together

When we mention the word "programmer", the first thing that comes to our mind is a guy wearing black-framed glasses and a plaid shirt. In fact, this is the impression of programmers both in China and abroad. Female programmers are a rare species. Now Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and her Lean in project hope to change this situation. They have launched a CS&E (Computer Science and Engineering) chapter to help working and studying CS&E women build connections and provide mutual advice and help.

The project's partners include Facebook, LinkedIn and Anita Borg Institute. Sheryl Sandberg wrote on Facebook: In 1985, 35% of computer science students were girls, but today that percentage is only 18%. Women are missing out on high-paying jobs like programmers that are flexible, interesting, and influential, and the world is missing out on the wonderful ideas that come from women.

In fact, there has always been a lot of women in the history of computer science. The world's first programmer was a woman. Ada Lovelace, the daughter of the British poet Lord Byron, was the first to realize that "everything can be presented in digital form"; the programming of the world's first general-purpose electronic computer ENIAC was also completed by women. In the 1960s, computer programming was even one of the most popular professions among young women.

Richard Firth, chairman of communications company MIP, believes that the reason things changed is that "programming began to be seen as a 'difficult' subject. In the early days, programming was just like editing and typing. When it came to the 1980s, when code really needed to be logical and able to solve complex problems, women's abilities were immediately questioned and they were not encouraged to participate." However, MIP itself has proved that women can take on this responsibility. 59% of MIP's female employees are programmers.

[[127533]]

In addition to the CS&E chapter of Lean in, there are many organizations helping women enter the field of computer science. Meetup.com can help you find capable female programmers in your area; Girls Who Code provides courses and workshops for ambitious people in five cities across the United States; Black Girls Code helps people of color learn languages ​​like Scratch and Ruby; Ladies Learning Code provides guidance and help to women who have already entered society but want to learn programming; hack.pledge() uses videos online to provide one-on-one teaching guidance to women. Facebook, Pinterest and Box have also jointly launched a mentoring project called WEST (Women Entering and Staying in Tech).

In addition to the call for "women to return to the field of programming", the United States is also talking about "Tech Diversity", hoping to change the stereotype that there are only white men in the programming field (the situation of not enough programmers). Facebook hired senior journalist Maxine Williams to be in charge of "global employee diversity" affairs and established an internship program called "Facebook University" to attract female and color students. Intel also recently announced that it will invest 30 million US dollars to increase employee diversity; Google sponsored the programming education organization Code2040 with 775,000 US dollars to help 5,000 Latino and black students learn programming; Code2040's start-up funds also came from Airbnb and the famous investor Marc Andreessen.

So, girls, are you interested in learning programming?