Four girls at Westside High School are smashing stereotypes.
"I think computer science is a really broad field," said Junior Emma Carlson.
"This is something of the future. It is one of the highest demanded jobs and the demand is growing a lot," said Freshman Raeann Sando.
The young women are living by the words of a poster hanging in a classroom, "Make the boys play by your rules. Learn 2 Code."
"I just noticed, wow I can do a lot of things just with this one skill," said Freshman Victoria Chin.
"If you are a girl and you spend a lot of time learning how to code and developing stuff on computers, continue to do that," said Freshman Ramya Iyar.
Freshman Ramya Iyar and her classmates Raeann Sando and Victoria Chin, along with Junior Emma Carlson have been crushing on coding for a while now.
"In middle school I joined Mrs. Shabram's Computer Science Club," said Chin.
All the girls say Mrs. Shabram from middle school helped spark their love of STEM.
"She was able to have all this knowledge and share it with me and kind of guide me along the way," said Sando.
"She was like okay do Code Crush, go do this and she just kept bringing up these opportunities," said Carlson.
One of those opportunities was entering the National Center for Women and Information Technology competition. Recipients were selected for things like achievements in computing, leadership and academic performance.
"I was surprised when I first won the award," said Ramya Iyar.
Ramya won the top honors in our region and the other young ladies were awarded honorable mentions.
"It is one of those things where it is definitely exciting to win those awards, but I don't think that is the reason I do it," said Carlson.
The girls say winning these awards gives them hope for the future of women in the computer science field and motivation to keep furthering their education together.
"We can all support each other and help each other out on different programs, so it is very encouraging," said Chin.
