Today, I have the great pleasure of introducing you all to McGill Women in Computer Science (McWiCS), a student-run community at McGill that strives to support and encourage women in the Computer Science field. You may ask, “Why is such a community important at McGill?” To put it briefly, Computer Science is a rapidly growing field with vast possibilities, but it is also a field where women make up the overwhelming minority. At McGill, only 27.3% of undergraduates majoring in Computer Science are women, 36.6% of those minoring in Computer Science are women, and only 11.3% of the McGill School of Computer Science faculty are women. To learn more about McWiCS and their goals and activities, I got into contact with Erin Havens, the founder of McWiCS, as well as Yuke Wang and Abby Spilkevitz, the current co-presidents. Many women become discouraged in the face of this gender gap, with indifferent or even condescending attitudes being a common occurrence in their study and work environments. McWiCS exists to address this exact issue.
The 3 goals of McWiCS are 1: to cultivate a warm, supportive community for women in Computer Science, 2: to encourage their technical, educational, and professional development, and 3: to expand the opportunities for their members. McWiCS has an extensive portfolio of programs and activities which will help them reach these goals, some of which are summarized below:
- To guide the growth of young women in Computer Science, McWiCS offers two unique mentorship programs: the CSter program, which partners less experienced students with graduate and more experienced undergraduate students studying in the McGill School of Computer Science; and the industry mentorship program, which pairs students with professional women in the industry. Both are great ways to create long-lasting connections within the Computer Science sphere and to receive professional advice and guidance.
- McWiCS also offers workshops, speaker presentations, and site visits to local companies and startups. So far, they have hosted a workshop about neural machine learning in conjunction with McGill Enthusiasts of NeuroTechnology et al, a site visit to Autodesk Montreal, and even breakfast at Google! This year, McWiCS kicked off their list of workshops and events with a technical interview workshop at Google Montreal.
- The McWiCS Snapshots Campaign features women in Computer Science from all levels of experience. Through this campaign, McWiCS hopes to showcase the diversity of women in Computer Science, as well as introduce amazing role models for female students.
- Both Yuke and Abby emphasized that one of the main goals this year is to organize a beginner-friendly Hackathon (the Hackathon won’t be gender-exclusive)!
- McWiCS managed to raise enough funds last year to send two women to The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing! McWiCS recently announced the two lucky recipients of this year’s Grace Hopper Award, they will be attending this year’s Grace Hopper Celebration from October 4th to October 6th in Orlando.
I was so impressed that such a new community already seemed so well established. McWiCS is making waves in the McGill bubble despite its fairly short history, which I like to think is proof that McWiCS is indeed a crucial community here on campus. Be sure to keep an eye out for all the awesome things they’ll be undertaking in 2017 and beyond! To keep up with their latest news and activities, join the McWiCS community through their website, and be sure to “like” their Facebook page!
Images provided by the interviewees.