What are my research questions?

• How do we create a CS program that meets the needs and wants of Barnard students?
• What does an ideal CS program look like to Barnard students?
• What are the primary concerns of Barnard CS students?
• How do we develop a CS program that changes the way collegiate CS programs are designed?
• How can we design a CS program that effectively gets more students to major in CS?
• How do we develop a CS program that makes CS accessible and inclusive?

What do I hope to achieve out of this project?

• Greater sense of community among Barnard CS students
• Foster belief and confidence in aspiring Barnard CS students
• Tangible improvements/additives to Barnard's CS program
• The prioritization of adding an introductory sequence to the CS major houses at Barnard
• a council comprised of aspiring, committed, and Barnard CS alumnae that regularly convenes with Barnard CS program faculty and other stakeholders to inform direction of Barnard CS program
• Stories and experiences of Barnard CS students + a way of sharing these in an innovative way that utilizes technology in some capacity
  • I want the outcome of this project itself to be evidence of the creativity that comes out of Barnard CS students
  • I want this project to set the foundation and direction of the way that Barnard CS is structured

The project centers around student needs and voices. This project is about changing up the status-quo. This project is about thinking outside of the box and re-imagining the way that CS can be taught. This project is about presenting technology and the forces of technology in a way that people never would have expected. This project is intended to make people think, to make people question what they've always assumed to be true about computer science and computer science education. I want to take every single issue that a Barnard student, or anyone for that matter, has faced when it came to their CS education experience and use it to build the opposite. This project is one that comes from lived experience. This project requires the collaboration of students and faculty. This project is about dreaming, imagining, re-envisioning, and doing. This project is about doing it differently and centering priorities around the needs and wants of students.

I truly believe that Barnard has the potential to completely change the collegiate college CS scene. I believe that if we can build a CS program at Barnard that aligns with Barnard's mission and values, we can singlehandedly increase the number of women awarded CS degrees across the nation. Barnard can be the gold-standard for what an ideal CS program looks like, one that makes people excited about learning and growing their coding superpowers. If we can do it right at Barnard, our program can be replicated across colleges all over the country. The world even.

We need to dream big. We need to imagine a CS program that defies what the traditional CS program looks like. If the current program design isn't working for the majority of students (and I mean this across college campuses), we need to do something about it. If the status quo of CS education, and STEM education at large, makes people genuinely terrified of pursuing a STEM degree, we need to do something about it. This project is doing something about it.