Back in 2008, The New York Times wondered why only 12 percent of computer science degrees in the United States and Canada were conferred to women. Now, just about a quarter of computer and information technology professionals in America are women, despite the fact that women hold over half of all degreed positions, according to the National Center for Women in Information Technology.

At Springbrook High School, home of the Northeast Consortium’s technology signature program, girls follow the national trend of quickly losing interest in computer science, or not choosing the program at all. One school group, Springbrook Women in Technology (SWIT), was founded four years ago to reverse the trend.

“There weren’t enough girls continuing on to the higher levels of technology,” said Pat Yongpradit, a computer science teacher at Springbrook and founding sponsor of the group.

“We have four years of information technology-computer science and there’d be about 30-ish percent girls at the intro level,” he continued. “But it would drop off dramatically to level two, three and then four where we’d only have in level four maybe just one girl in the class.”

In four years, SWIT has helped to triple the number of girls in computer science courses. This semester, three female students are enrolled in Advanced Topics in Computer Science, the highest level of computer science at the school. Yongpradit said the class normally includes only one girl. The other three levels of computer science have also seen an influx in girls, prompting the school to add more classes.

The women of SWIT, a group with about 35 members, have stories of the old days before there was a community of women interested in tech.

“When we first started there were four girls in our class,” said Sydney Harmon, a senior and co-president of the group, “it was kind of intimidating. The guys would just be off on their own.

“Even if you were [not] consciously aware of it, it kind of bothered you,” she said.

“In my freshmen year and the same with sophomore year, I was one of only three girls in the class and the entire room was guys,” said senior Amita Jain, co-president of SWIT. “When I came to this group, I was like, there are actually this many girls interested in technology.”

Girls in SWIT practice computer science techniques (last week they were using a computer program to design t-shirts for the group), but the gathering of women with the same interest is an equally important function of the group, according to Yongpradit.

“I decided to start a club to help the girls get together… help them get together to let them see that there were already lots of girls interested in technology and basically almost create a community and a cohort that they could go through the continuum together,” he said.

Two freshmen SWIT members said they joined partially because of the social aspect of the group.

First year tech student Grace Koo said, “A lot of my friends came and also it’s good for college.

“I know the people, like Sydney and Amita, they’re really nice,” she continued.

Damali Rollins said her friends encouraged each other to join the group.

“When I heard about this, I took this as an opportunity to learn more about technology and to have fun while I’m doing it without intimidation,” she said.

When asked why girls seem to be less interested in technology, Yongpradit said it may come down to visibility.  

“I think they’re less interested in technology, but not inherently less interested,” he said. “They’re less interested because of society’s stereotypes and academic stereotypes, so they’ve turned towards other things, like maybe journalism or English or more humanities-based things rather than technology just because they feel like they’re more welcome there. They see more women there, so therefore they want to go that route.”