Project: Leveling the CS1 Playing Field
Project Leader: Gloria Childress
Computer Science I (CS1) is the first class that incoming students take, which creates a key opportunity for attracting female CS majors. The project uses a unique early intervention approach to increase the number of female CS majors. The project leader has organized several iterations (seven years) of the recruitment program at DePauw University (liberal arts institution) by sending a mailing to each first-year woman that consists of a brochure containing young CS women's "stories of success" and computing opportunities, along with an invitation to a CS1 preview that will teach women concepts that fill roughly the first week of CS1, using the customary laboratory setting. This invitation occurs just prior to registration.
Our treatment group contained 116 students; control group, 120. Our data analysis found 10% more women enrolled in CS1 classes after receiving the letter and brochure than enrolled in the classes whose female members did not receive the mailings. Recently, Indiana University (large research university) has modified the project for its students by sending the brochure and invitation to a subset (based upon SAT score) of its large, first-year class. Details of the long-term DePauw University project and the more recent Indiana University replication are in our paper from SIGCSE 2007.
Project Leader: Mary Anne Egan
Student IMPACT Career Exploration and Competition is a one day alternative programming contest designed to provide high school students who have demonstrated mathematical talent with an opportunity to explore some of the ways that college students and professionals think and work in computer science. Many students indicate that they never considered computer science as a major because they were unsure what computer scientists did for a living. Programming contests exist for those students who already are exposed to and are experienced in computer science. This alternative contest gives the same competitive spirit to the exploration of various areas of the computer science field.