A High-Tech Career Of Her Own

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April 22, 1998 (3:42 PM EDT)

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By Jim Rapp,

We have been bombarded with headlines about the lack of skilled computer and technology workers in the United States, that many say point to the need to hire foreign technology professionals.

But perhaps we are discounting one key group that exists right in our own backyards.

Women have increasingly become a key component of the labor force. By the millennium, 8 out of 10 women, ages 25 to 54 will be working, and according to the Women's College Coalition, the best-paying occupations will require the highest technical skills. In fact, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics projections, computer scientists, computer engineers, and systems analysts will be the top three growth occupations well into the next decade.

A HIGH-TECH CAREER OF HER OWN
"Technology is not an end in itself, but a vehicle for what one really likes to do," says Laura Groppe, Girl Games president and CEO

On Take Our Daughters To Work Day, what better time to examine what is being done to prepare girls for a lucrative, high-tech career. In fact, a handful of enterprising companies are addressing exactly that, with such offerings as interactive CD-ROM games, technology toys, books, and specialty websites to help girls feel more comfortable with technology and their abilities.

"Technology is not an end in itself, but a vehicle for what one really likes to do," says Laura Groppe, president and CEO at Girl Games, an interactive software company in Austin, Texas, that targets 8- to 18-year-old girls. "Girls do not want to learn to like a computer, but rather the outcome of what it and other technology can offer. Only then will they see the merit of, and seek to become the coders, creators, and producers of technology. You kind of go through the back door."

Girls And Computers
Statistics from the National Science Foundation show between 1985 and 1995, women went from earning 36 percent of computer science bachelor's degrees to 28 percent. Furthermore, in 1997 only 17 percent of high school students testing for computer science college credit were female.

Yet, a 1997 Gallup Poll of 13- to 17-year-olds found relatively small differences between girls and boys in terms of their general orientation toward technology.

What accounts for this disparity?

"In surveys, many girls will say I really 'like' computers, which often means they like using applications, word-processing programs, spreadsheets, the Internet, and games -- as opposed to computer programming, software development, and hardware engineering," says Cynthia Lanius, a Houston math teacher and program manager at GirlTECH, a teacher-training program sponsored by the Center for Parallel Computation at Rice University to help move girls toward technology.

Next: Some less-subtle occurrences as girls and boys mature

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