2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Having a sense of belonging and involvement are critical indicators of student’s success and retention in general but more importantly for female students in computing disciplines. Female students’ enrollment and retention in computing is significantly low compared to males. Universities have been aware of this problem and significant effort has been steered to improve female students’ enrollment and retention. There have been indicators that student’s community service enhances their sense of belonging and ultimately their academic success. We, at the School of Computing and Engineering, have been supporting our female student’s sense of belonging though multiple venues including the establishment and operation of Girls Who Code Club-QU (GWC-QU) since 2017. Girls Who Code is a nonprofit organization that is dedicated to closing the gender gap in technology and computer science. Their mission is to inspire more girls to become computer scientists and engineers by running clubs where girls grade 6 through 12 learn computer science skills from volunteer teachers. Last year, the club was run by nine female facilitators and served 36 female students. The student facilitators ranged from freshmen students to senior computing female students. As the club advisor. I have witnessed the facilitators build a small community of practice where they mentor each other as well as mentor younger female students that participated in the club. Running the club requires significant effort where the facilitators must visit schools around the area to recruit younger females as well as spread the word about the club. The club activities are scheduled for 10 weeks where the facilitators must meet with the school-age students for an hour and a half to teach them computing principles and guide them through the completion of a personal project. This work explores how female students sense of belonging is enhanced though community service specifically by running GWC-QU and mentoring younger female students. I hypotheses that female student facilitator’s involvement with the club and their engagement in community service, by mentoring younger females, has a strong influence in their decision to stay in the major. It also promotes their sense of belonging in the school and university.