Abstract
Recent studies have indicated that the number of women receiving
computer science degrees is decreasing. The ACM reports a shocking
25.9% decline in the percentage of women earning bachelors degrees in
computer science between the years of 1983 and 1996. This
diminishing educational pipeline raises concerns as to whether the
barriers that have discouraged women from pursuing computing interests
in the past still exist today and whether the obstacles that are
present
in elementary education also exist at the university level. This
project
will explore the problems faced by female computer science students in
higher education. We will examine past and current trends regarding
the
presence of women in undergraduate and graduate level computer science
programs and will look at the efforts (or the lack thereof) taken by
universities to address this dearth of female computer science
students.
We will also investigate the implications of this present trend if it
continues. Finally, we will provide our own recommendations for
addressing the problem.
