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NoMi Women News

By Lynda Wheatley | Feb. 4, 2022

Traverse City Central High School (CHS) has earned an impressive award for achieving high female representation in an Advanced Placement Computer Science class: the College Board Advanced Placement Computer Science Female Diversity Award.

Translation? 50 percent or more female students were part of Central’s AP Computer Science A class (one of two levels of the course) in the 20/21 school year — a success only 198 other schools in the country, and only six other schools in Michigan, can claim.

According to a Google study, 54 percent of female computer science majors took AP CSA in high school. College Board research about AP CSP also finds AP CSP students are nearly twice as likely to enroll in AP CSA, and that for most students, AP CSP serves as a stepping stone to other advanced AP STEM coursework.

Providing female students with access to computer science courses is considered critical to ensuring gender parity in the tech industry’s high-paying jobs — and to drive innovation, creativity, and representation. The median annual wage for computer and information technology occupations was $91,250 in May 2020. However, 2017 Bureau of Labor Statistics data found women represented just 24 percent of the five million people in computing occupations.

Thanks to schools like TC Central, that’s changing: AP Computer Science A, which first debuted in 1988, continues to grow, and female participation has increased 33 percent since 2017. 

*Photo courtesy of Caroline Feelgood, Unsplash