Cornell is well above average in achieving equal gender representation in computer science. While nationally just 18 percent of undergraduate computer science majors are women, Cornell sees more than double that proportion, with 39 percent being women.
Women in Computing at Cornell, a student organization working to build a community for women, gender minorities and their allies interested in technology, seeks to empower this population. WICC provides academic, social and professional opportunities to its members.
For Rahi Dasgupta ’27, an information science major, joining a women-centered academic organization like WICC was one of her top priorities as she prepared to begin her undergraduate education.
“I wanted a community of strong women who could relate to being women in STEM and also to understand the major and the computing world as a whole,” Dasgupta said.
WICC Co-President Jasmine Samadi ’25, an operations research and information engineering major, expressed a similar desire to find a community of strong women in computing.
“I’m a Persian woman, and in my community, it’s very rare for women to go into the engineering field,” Samadi said. “Personally, I hadn’t really seen it anywhere around me, and I did feel a little isolated in that sense.”
At Samadi’s first meeting, she met Fatima Yuen ’23 who helped her plan her schedule while they shared a Panera Bread box. Yuen ultimately encouraged her to apply for the WICC executive board.
“From that moment, I wanted to be the way Fatima was to me to other girls that were in my position,” Samadi said. “For an upperclassman to give me that sort of helping hand — it really, really touched [me].”
Samadi, along with Co-President Neha Sunkara ’25, are part of the operations team of WICC. They, along with 33 other executive board members, serve the club’s 300 active members in preparing for professional life in the tech industry, according to Sunkara.
WICC regularly hosts events with prospective employers. WICC’s March schedule includes events with representatives of companies including Vanguard, Avalara, Amazon and Capital One, according to the organization’s Instagram.
Beyond pre-professional opportunities, the organization seeks to connect members beyond surface-level networking, Sunkara said.
WICC typically holds a few general body meetings per semester, as well as social events such as ice skating at Lynah Rink, held earlier this semester. The organization also hosts a mentorship program each semester, pairing two upperclassmen mentors with five mentees. The mentors serve as role models and guides, offering both personal and professional advice.
“We [upperclassmen] were all in the position of being underclassmen. So, I think a lot of where our culture comes from is upperclassmen being part of the mentorship program, or just being like non-formal mentors to underclassmen,” Samadi said.
This culture of upperclassmen giving back to underclassmen, Samadi believes, is one of WICC’s greatest strengths.
“On [executive] board one of our goals is that every board member creates a meaningful connection with a few [general] body members every semester,” Samadi said. “We try and make a really active effort of giving back as much as we can to the underclassmen.”
The organization also has a wider impact in the community, running a Girls Who Code program for Ithaca middle and high school students. The program currently has 60 students, according to Samadi.
Prof. Kavita Bala, computing and information science, who serves as the dean of Bowers CIS, is known to occasionally attend WICC events. Most recently, she was an opener at “Finnovation: Celebrating Women and Non-Binary Contributions to FinTech,” an event held by WICC and sponsored by Capital One and the Cornell Bowers CIS Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, according to Samadi.
President Martha Pollack has even attended WICC events. Pollack — who is a professor of computer science, information science and linguistics — attended Lunch Bunch, an event WICC regularly hosts to promote relations between students and faculty, according to Sunkara.
“It was really cool, because [Pollack] would just ask people, ‘What do you think about certain things?’ or, ‘What would you change if you had this?’ and was very open to hearing everyone’s thoughts,” Sunkara said. “So, it’s really cool getting to see her interact with students.”
Pollack also attended the organization’s tenth birthday party, held on March 25, 2023, according to Sunkara.
While progress has been made in achieving gender parity in computing, especially in class rosters, Sunkara said that self doubt presents one of the greatest challenges for women at Cornell pursuing computer science and other technology majors.
“I think a lot of people come in knowing that [the] percentage [of women in computing is low],” Sunkara said. “So, I think a lot of people come in with that attitude being like, ‘Maybe I’ll have impostor syndrome here in classes,’ or ‘Maybe I won’t really feel supported.’”
Sunkara also noted that implicit biases can negatively impact educational experiences, recalling feeling deprioritized in a male-dominated office hours session.
“It was a room full of guys and me in the corner with one of the girls. And I remember the teaching assistant was only helping the guys even though we were in the queue, waiting for help,” Sunkara said. “The TA would always just go over to the guys and go like, ‘Oh, look, here’s the answer to this thing.’ And we’d be like, ‘Oh, we just asked this question.’”
Despite the challenges the organization and its members sometimes face, Dasgupta’s experience with WICC has been overwhelmingly positive.
“It’s been amazing. There have been so many opportunities, especially just being in the community and going to the social events and club-wide meetings,” Dasgupta said. “There are a lot of people who I’ve met through WICC that have become my super close friends now.”
Chris Walkowiak is a Sun Contributor and can be reached at [email protected].
Clarification, April 11, 5:36 p.m.: This article has been updated to clarify that the Cornell Bowers CIS Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion sponsored the “Finnovation: Celebrating Women and Non-Binary Contributions to FinTech” event, in addition to Capital One.
Correction, March 25, 6:15 p.m.: A previous version of this article misspelled Prof. Kavita Bala’s name. The article has been corrected, and The Sun regrets this error.