By Margaret Kingsport
Fayetteville Free Library
In this connected age, access to computers and the internet feels like a fundamental need, alongside food, water and shelter. Over 80 percent of the U.S. has a computer and high-speed internet access at home, and public libraries, like the Fayetteville Free Library, meet this fundamental need by providing access to things like computers, tablets and free Wi-Fi.
Our society’s need to be connected has led to a substantial increase in the number of jobs created in computer science and related fields. In fact, the U.S. Department of Labor predicts a 13 percent increase in employment for computer and information technology occupations from 2016 to 2026. Computer science is a field with many opportunities.
Code.org and the Computer Science Education Coalition published a letter in 2016 stating that there are over 500,000 jobs available in computer science but only about 50,000 bachelor’s degrees earned in computer science every year. The truly unfortunate thing about this statistic is that women earn only 18 percent of those. In fact, the percentage of women earning computer science degrees peaked in the 1980s at 34 percent and has been declining ever since. New York State saw only 684 female computer science graduates in 2015.
So how do we change this? We can increase the diversity of the portrayal of computer science-related characters in popular media, allowing girls to see themselves as potential programmers. We can help girls understand how computer science is relevant to their lives and how they can use it to make an impact on the world. We can help girls build confidence in their coding skills by allowing them to make mistakes. We can train more women to be computer science educators; studies show that girls are 26 percent more likely to show interest in computer science if they have a female teacher.
The Fayetteville Free Library strives to provide opportunities for our community to learn and develop STEAM skills, including computer science and coding. Join the Syracuse Women in Coding group for an Introduction to HTML and CSS class from 10 a.m. to noon, Saturday Oct. 13, at the library. To register, visit our website fflib.org.
The FFL Buzz will be back next week.
