ASH Wins AP Computer Science Female Diversity Award

ASH was awarded the 2021 AP Computer Science Female Diversity Award by the College Board, which honors female representation in the AP computer science course. When we asked our students taking this course how they feel about it, they shared proud and ambitious opinions. 

“Female representation in STEM is incredibly important, not only for progress in gender equality, but for progress in science. The more people that contribute to the field, the more theories and ideas the greater scientific community has to work with, which pushes humanity's understanding of our world and ourselves forward. I believe that even people who are not going into computer science in the future could benefit from taking such a class, because the problem solving skills can be applied to many other careers.” - Elizabeth, student

“I took a  programming class in grade 9, and Mr. T encouraged me to take a higher-level computer science course later. I am planning to major in mathematics and computer science, so it was also a matter of having some preparation for my college journey. Female representation is still very sparse in general in STEM fields. One of my inspirations is Ada Lovelace and she is known as the first computer programmer. Even though she faced a lot of misogyny, she continued to work in mathematics and to write theories about supposed analytical machines.” - Michelle, student

“The course helped me understand what programming can achieve and develop my coding skills further. It also helped solidify the fact that I wanted to do programming in the future as a career. I've known I wanted to do something in the IT field since I was in middle school, I just wasn't sure what. Programming is very much a collaborative field and the course mirrors that by allowing and encouraging collaboration between the students” - Josefine, student

“I’ve been teaching computer science for over 25 years. I started with a small class due to the fact it was a brand new course offered at ASH. Since technology is a very attractive area among youngsters, the class started getting more and more interesting as people enrolled in it. And for the first time ever, we do have 55% percent of female students involved in both IB and AP computer science programs here at ASH.” - Marcos, teacher

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