Girls Aren’t Getting “IT”
March 31, 2009 · by Kacie Conroy
Yesterday I worked at the LEAP (Learn Educate And Prosper) conference. It is a conference that aims to educate high school girls about their career options. The turn out of professionals from various industries was really great. The highlight was listening to Barbara Lawton speak. She had a very clear and inspiring message to deliver to the girls!
However, one thing that I didn’t find inspiring was the lack of knowledge about IT with the high school girls.
I run a program called GET IT (Girls Educating Themselves about Information Technology) that caters to middle school girl scout troops. At the beginning of each presentation I ask the girls if they have heard of any of the seven career paths we later discuss. I expect middle schoolers to be relatively unfamiliar with IT career paths. However, I was not expecting the high school LEAP conference attendees to have almost identical numbers to my typical 10 year old audience. With all the technology used by these young women, be it computers, or cell phones, I was really astounded at the numbers.
When I asked the LEAP attendees how many had heard of the term “IT” no one raised their hand. Zero. That is 0% out the 54 students who attended my presentation. Although there is a lot of work to be done there is a glimmer of hope. In each of my presentations I saw smiles and excitement during our BA role playing activity. I can say that were definitely some future BAs in there that now know about a really great career that they weren’t aware of before.
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Comments
- #1 - Tammy said on Apr 13, 2009:
- Part of the challenge is parents and guidance counselors do not fully understand information technology, how important it is to every business and activity we now participate in.
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Commenting is not available in this section entry.Information technology runs cash registers, stop lights, street lights, elevators, GPS systems and on and on. We’re now so tied into and dependent upon information technology that we simply cannot live without it.
Statistics show in 5-7 years 50% our current information technology workforce will be retirement eligible. Those numbers ensure information technology, like health care, will remain one of the top careers, from a demand and salary standpoint, for the foreseeable future.
The question is how do we rapidly educate young students, their parents and guidance counselors to the opportunities the information technology field provides them.