7/20/2016 By Tom Moone, CS @ ILLINOIS
Written by By Tom Moone, CS @ ILLINOIS
On November 7, Siebel Center greeted 49 high school girls who had arrived to take part in the ChicTech (SHEEK-tech) retreat put on by Women in Computer Science (WCS) in partnership with CS @ ILLINOIS. Assisted by over 40 volunteers, the high school students received an introduction to technology and the culture of CS @ ILLINOIS.
CS @ ILLINOIS junior Brianna Ifft was the director and primary organizer for this year’s event. She and her team of volunteers and assistants worked together to give the attendees a valuable and inspiring weekend. The attendees arrived starting at 8:30 on the Saturday morning, and left Sunday afternoon at 2:00 p.m.
There were three workshops held over the course of the weekend on Scratch, HTML, and JavaScript, depending on the participant’s experience. “They let me know when they registered how much experience they had, and I placed them in those accordingly,” said Ifft.
In addition to the technically focused workshops, there were several other activities designed to get the attendees to work together, get to know one another, and see more of the Illinois campus. They had a scavenger hunt throughout the north part of campus. Teams of students posted photos of themselves at many (each) of the goals they were trying to achieve in checking off their list. There was also a movie that they all watched, and a session of CS trivia.
Students had a great time, as indicated by their feedback. “Some said it was life changing,” Ifft said. “They really liked meeting girls who were like minded as them or who were pursuing similar goals.”
In the post-event evaluations, one participant said, “Everything was great. It is a really good opportunity for girls who are interested in CS and those who are still trying to figure out what they want to study, so keep it up, and definitely something that should be done every year. Congratulations for your effort, time and creativity, it was a great retreat, something I would do again without a doubt.”
Another said, “Thank you girls so much for this amazing experience! I had so much fun and learned a lot too! I will definitely give my current CS teacher positive reviews and we'll recommend this for next year's girls. I appreciate the time and effort taken to put this together and I feel empowered and not as scared to major in CS.”
In addition, several attendees indicated that their high schools didn’t offer any computer science classes or any clubs to help teach computer skills. “For them it was really eye opening,” said Ifft. “So it really [opened them up] to what computer science is.”
The success of the event is due in large part to the effort Ifft put into it. Scheduling for the event was already under way by the end of the spring semester. Over the course of the summer, Ifft developed a budget and contacted companies to provide sponsorship and swag for attendees. In the fall, she started looking for volunteers and worked on the finer details of the event.
The event was run as a partnership between the CS Department and WCS, with the department underwriting the cost of the event. CJ Coleman, CS @ ILLINOIS associate director of external relations, said, “CS @ Illinois and WCS have been honored to run our ChicTech programs including the ChicTech Retreat for over ten years now. The department is committed to supporting outreach programs to introduce CS concepts to women and underrepresented populations of all ages. We look forward to keeping in touch with our attendees to help foster their interests in CS.”
And Ifft is an example of how ChicTech can help foster these interests. Ifft was a particularly strong advocate for this year’s ChicTech because she had been a participant when she was in high school. That experience “was really impactful for me,” Ifft said. “It helped me decide where I wanted to go to college. And, I got to meet all the WCS girls. I felt that I already had a community when I came here.”
It is quite likely that some attendees from this year’s event will look back on ChicTech with similar feelings.