2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

As computer science seeks to diversify, the act of becoming in computing will be an important avenue of investigation, and the connections students make to specific careers in the field may support identity development that moves beyond the role of student towards future professional identities. This study is part of a three-year multi-method study of a program serving students in a rural computer science department at a Hispanic Serving Institution. The situative learning theory was employed to understand whether and how students developed interest and agency in a cybersecurity career path as they participate in a federally funded scholarship program for high achieving low income students. Evidence from the case study suggest that structured, mandatory participation in competitions fueled interest in cybersecurity, as did regular opportunities to discuss contemporary events in the field with students across grade levels and professional interests. Access to a national conference with a hackathon as well as a career fair supported career pathways in the field—the iterative nature of the participation in competitions and conferences gave an opportunity to see growth over time in cybersecurity. The study of community practices and discursive language development may support other educators intending to develop career-focused co-curricular activities that emphasize mutual engagement with other students across grade levels and intent on a joint enterprise, or shared goal. With time and through engagement with more capable peers, students in the study developed shared repertoires of technical language and technical skill specific to a potential career. Focusing on cybersecurity as a subfield shifted the emphasis of identity from one of major choice to one of future possibilities and connection to career. This shift may support future identity work in other subfields of computing, as well as in other elements of computing education, such as graduate study.