At today's computer science panel and lunch, five women spoke about their personal experiences with computer science. Our panel was incredibly diverse; it ranged from a 19 year old college student majoring in computer science at UIUC to a professor who returned to graduate school to get her PhD after her children were in grade school. We had mothers, wives, engineers, scientists, educators, handy-m'ams, farmers, and students.
I asked our panelists about their first experience with computers. One graduate student reported seeing a computer for the first time at age 16 in her home country of Bangladesh. Another panelist talked about the big mainframe computer that she got to program. Once the computer did what she told it to do, she immediately fell in love. The average age of our panelists for their first experience with computers was about 12 years old.
Out of curiosity, I surveyed the audience of seventy campers. I asked, raise your hand if your first experience with computers was at age 8 or younger. BOOM! All hands were raised. 7 years? 6 years? 5? Some of our campers still had their hands raised at 1 year. What a childhood, with such ubiquitous computers, seeming to be everywhere at once.
I'm so amazed at how much these young women know about computers! They are smart, savvy, and creative, and I expect to see great things from them in the future.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment