Melinda Gates Has a New Mission: Women in Tech
Melinda Gates says: &quot;Some of the best programs, UW, Stanford, Berkeley — or what [president] Maria Klawe is doing at Harvey Mudd — are finally looking at that very first CS course. If it’s completely geared towards an 18-year-old white male, and they are not thinking about role models for women or problem sets they get for women, how do we keep [women] in the course?&quot;<p>I can really see myself in this -- as a teenager I wrote a lot of code recreationally, writing scripts to automate playing text-based computer games (&quot;go north. a monster attacks!&quot;) and writing my own games.<p>It was the first CS classes that drove me away from it, and led me to think:<p>- CS isn&#x27;t for people like me<p>- CS problems aren&#x27;t interesting<p>- CS doesn&#x27;t do anything to make the world a better place.<p>It took me many years to come back around to the coding career I&#x27;m in today. I really believe that small changes to the classes could&#x27;ve prevented me from developing those misconceptions and being driven away from it.