'Girls Who Code' Provides Learning, Community For Oxford Girls

BY HANNAH JOLLY
and ANGIE RIFFLE
Miami University journalism students

Academic buildings are quiet on weekends on Miami University’s campus.
Benton Hall is the exception. Thirteen girls meet each Saturday to fill the hallways with laughter and shatter stereotypes about the male-dominated field of computer science.
These 13 girls are girls who code.
Girls Who Code is a national nonprofit that hosts clubs across the United States where young girls can come together and learn with other girls who share their same passion.
Logical and creative
One Talawanda High Schooler has been passionate for a while.
“I’ve been a longtime fan of like technology and computers so I think, I guess, I really, really was interested in how they worked. So like the programming aspect of it was really interesting to me. I just like how logical it is, yet creative you can be with it.”
Miami’s Girls Who Code club attracts sixth- to 12th-grade girls all the way from Cincinnati and Dayton who show an interest in learning computer science.
The girls are in the minority. In Miami's Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, only 14 percent of the students are women.
One of these students studying computer science at Miami, Gianna Sheffield, is a volunteer at Girls Who Code.
“It's my chance to give these girls an opportunity to be in like a community of women and learn how to program because I really like programming. I think that they don’t want to join the programming classes at their school because they’re so male-dominated or there’s just no programming classes.”
Coders of tomorrow
Miami assistant professor and faculty adviser, Daniela Inclezan, is helping the Girls Who Code club build the coders of tomorrow while building community today.
“It’s important to actually break some prejudices about computer science to show that that it can be fun, it have some social impact, it can be creative. Also, for the girls that already like programming or were exposed to that, to see that there are other girls that like the same things, that they are not alone. It’s building the sense of sisterhood that is very important to the organization.”
With hopes to have the club double in size by next year, Girls Who Code volunteers are hoping that the hallways of Benton will be filled with even more laughter as the club continues to grow and the gender gap shrinks.
Note: This story was produced by students in Digital Video Reporting at Miami University.