Gender aspects of computer science education II

The second paper I like to present is

Mehr Diversität durch Monoedukation

by Juliane Siegeris Link (p 65)

The author presents a women-only college program to get a degree in computer science and economy. It has been started in 2009 and it is one of six mono-educational college programs in Germany. It takes 6 semester and one receives a Bachelor’s degree in the end.

The goal is to raise the numbers female graduates in selected STEM fields.

The paper discusses its motivation, the concept and strategy to attain female students, and diversity aspects of the student body.

The research is based on surveys conducted within the students since 2015.

First results show, that women are being attracted, who otherwise ould not have studied computer science.

The questions the authors ask is, is there a way to contribute to diversity (of the IT workforce) with the help of mono-educational degrees. Maybe also, how diverse is the student body itself.

The results show, that the student body of this degree is very international and very diverse with respect to age, origin, IT-experience, education.

The conclusion they draw is, that more women are getting access to the IT job market and this is something the industry wants.

Still a lot of questions are open, but I find it interesting to see, that women choose it, also because it is women-only. What effects does that have on your motivation to study computer science?

This is day 60 of my #100daystooffload series, a challenge to write 100 blog posts in a year.