Barnard Talks Up Comp Sci

Facing a dismal response from its first-year class, Barnard College is striving to increase the number of computer science majors by raising interest in the field through its advising and pre-college programs.

The effort, described by Barnard First-Year Class Dean Hilary Lieberman Link as a gradual process, is partly the result of a meeting last winter with members of Columbia's department of computer science, who approached Barnard administrators to discuss the possibility of attracting more females to the department. Computer science is one of the few Barnard majors based solely at Columbia.

Barnard will make an effort to better inform its academic advisers of the department's offerings through program planning meetings in late October.

Another initiative involves adding a computer science component to Saturday Science Seminars, an educational program hosted by Barnard for female high school students over six Saturdays. Link said she hopes that the computer science department will enhance the program for the coming winter. Jennifer Fondiller, Barnard dean of admissions, said that there are a number of pre-college programs run by Barnard to which computer science components could be added.

"It's not an outreach to current students; it's an outreach to prospective students," she said, adding that there is also potential for programs that connect incoming or prospective students with current students interested in computer science. Fondiller also said that there are a small number of girls in computer science partly because there's not much exposure to formal computer science classes at the high school level.

In order to better accommodate students with a developing interest in computer science, Henning Schulzrinne, chair of the department of computer science, has worked to make introductory courses easier and more interesting, and to form course tracks that accommodate students who declare their majors late.

"We tried to make our introductory computer sequence more suitable for students who have not had prior exposure to computer science," he said.

For the class of 2010, Link said only one student out of 556 expressed an academic interest in computer science. Currently, there are only two Barnard students majoring in computer science, out of an undergraduate enrollment of about 2,400 students, according to the Barnard Registrar.

According to the planning and research section of Barnard's Web site, computer literacy is the only area in which Barnard students are not required to complete course work in order to graduate.

"Until girls have the same opportunities and encouragement as boys, we have no grounds to say such a difference [in interest] is intrinsic, but rather something that is ingrained from a young age," said Katie Simon, SEAS '08 and a computer science major.

Schulzrinne said that he doesn't believe that females are at any disadvantage in the department.

"We have ample evidence that once students overcome external prejudice or their own misconceptions, that they become very successful in the program," he said.

Simon asserted that being a female in a male-dominated field has actually put her in an advantageous position.

"I am now looking at a situation that favors me very highly," she said. "Employers are looking for women; both male and female professors are excited to see more girls in their classes, and there are a variety of groups ... designed to help women through their engineering studies."

Schulzrinne added that he is enthusiastic about having more Barnard students in the department of computer science.

"They bring perspectives that maybe classical engineering students may not have," he said, adding that women in general did not have problems finding project groups or participating in computer science classes. "Talking to our female students, my perception is that they are very well integrated in the computer department."