Girls Who Code clubs growing in Naperville

The number of Girls Who Code in Naperville is growing.

One branch of a national club dedicated to decreasing the gender gap in computing was so popular at the Naperville Public Library last year that another club is being launched.

This group will be hosted by North Central College beginning Jan. 7 with the same goals: introduce girls to coding and programming, help them build friendships and encourage them to consider careers in science, technology, engineering and math.

"I'm hoping it'll be a really positive movement," said Jennifer Dust, a North Central graduate student in computer science who is helping start the new Girls Who Code club.

Dust and North Central computer science department Chairman Stephen Renk says the group is so popular that it's already full - at least 50 applications have flooded in for the 25 spots they're offering to girls in sixth through 12th grades.

Introducing girls to coding is "imperative," Renk said, because so few are choosing to enter the field.

"We need to educate our young ladies into STEM fields, into the quantitative fields," Renk said. "We can't afford as a country to waste 50 percent of our intellectual capital."

The number of female computer science majors at North Central has decreased from 40 percent of the department's students in the 1990s to about 10 percent now, Renk said. According to Girls Who Code, the trend is mirrored nationwide.

In 1984, 37 percent of computer science graduates were women, but now the number has dropped to 18 percent.

Girls who join the club participate for free. They take a pretest at the beginning of the 20-week program and then meet weekly to learn programming languages such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript and Python.

Dust said North Central female faculty members in STEM fields will visit the new club to share their expertise.

"At the end of the term, they create something that's important or matters to them with all the skills they've learned," said Dust, 25, who plans to pursue a doctoral degree in computer science before a career in software engineering and teaching.

Girls also learn from each other while working on their coding. At the Naperville library's club, now in its second year at the 95th Street branch, Neuqua Valley High School students Grace Hong and Trisha Prabhu help lead courses and share their passion for computing.

"I love working with the women and helping them get a better understanding of not only how a computer works, but how they can empower themselves to become better coders and become better sisters to one another," said Trisha, who has coded an anti-cyberbullying app called ReThink, for which she recently got a deal on ABC's "Shark Tank."

Younger students are more common in the library's club, and they've been impressed with the skills of the older girls.

"They find value in not just the coding but the friendships," said Alison Colman, a teen services librarian who helps run Girls Who Code.

While both Naperville clubs are full for now, interested coders can learn about clubs at other suburban schools, libraries and nonprofit organizations at girlswhocode.com/locations. There are at least 60 Girls Who Code locations in Illinois.