Though technology is one of the fastest-growing sectors in the global economy, and computer engineers are more in demand than ever, there remains a significant gap between the number of male engineers entering the workforce, compared to their female peers.
At the same time, tech companies are more eager than ever to recruit female talent to their teams, ready to ditch the reputation for homogeneity the sector has earned, and capture the overwhelmingly positive benefits of diversity in the workplace.
Yet building this diversity begins before recruitment, and programs such as the Grace Hopper Academy are working to change the culture at large. Named after the computer scientist and Navy rear-admiral who helped develop the Harvard Mark I, the school aims to create a truly equitable environment for aspiring female programmers.
The Grace Hopper program is available to both part- and full-time students and focuses on equipping students will full-stack JavaScript knowledge, making them valuable and competitive in a variety of positions and scenarios. Perhaps most significantly, no student of the Grace Hopper program pays any tuition up-front. Instead, all students complete the course and begin tuition repayment only after they have secured a position as an engineer.
Finding such a position post-program certainly does not seem to be a struggle: alumnae listed on the program’s site include current engineers at Google, Linkedin, Spotify and a host of other widely-known tech companies. According to the most recent CIRR reports, 85 percent of Grace Hopper graduates are employed in a full-time engineering position within 180 days of graduation.
Those interested in applying to the Grace Hopper program are encouraged to arrive on day one with some fundamental coding knowledge, and an understanding of basic programming terminology. Other qualities evaluated in the admissions process are motivation and collaboration. The school regularly hosts information sessions in addition to hackathons and bootcamps at their campuses in New York City and Chicago, as well as online.
Today, many similar programs, such as Girls Who Code, focus on educating young women in middle or high school about the world of STEM. The Grace Hopper program serves an equally important purpose of bringing tech-focused education to an older generation; women who may already have college degrees or business knowledge in other fields. It’s this type of multi-faceted approach to women in tech that will lead to the creation of a truly equitable tech scene.
