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St Mary's girls explore where creativity STEMs from

St Mary's girls explore where creativity STEMs from

Marina B. R. and Lila R. discuss the gender gap in STEM, and tell us more about their experience at Microsoft’s ‘DigiGirlz’ event, an event which aimed to empower girls to consider a career in STEM and inspire a passion to #MakeWhatsNext.

The lack of women in STEM subjects is a hot topic. But working in Technology is “about solving problems through technology and creating something you are excited and passionate about. It’s about using your creativity to innovate and create something new.”

So why are so few women and girls choosing it as a subject and as a career?

Is it because many of us don’t get the opportunity to try it?

Is it because there aren’t enough female role models in this area?

Or is it because too many girls simply don’t like the subjects?

The confidence gap

Girls lack confidence in their abilities in STEM subjects and are less likely to think they will end up working in them when they leave school, according to a new survey.

But despite a lack of confidence in their own abilities, girls continue to outperform boys in exams in STEM subjects. In maths and science, 68% of girls get top grades in exams taken at 16, compared with 65% of boys. The fact that girls do better than boys in exams in STEM subjects suggests it is lack of belief rather than any shortage of ability that is holding them back.

However, girls in GSA schools are more likely to choose ‘more challenging’ STEM subjects.

Here are some of the stats:

  • 75% more likely to study Mathematics A Level
  • 70% more likely to study Chemistry
  • 2.5 times more likely to study Physics

[Source GSA]

Microsoft stressed the importance of getting women into STEM industries. For example, Richard Potter from Microsoft started off the day by telling all of us a perfect excuse to tell parents if they drop and break their mobile phones. The mobile phone was designed by a man for a man’s hand, not a woman’s hand, not a girl’s hand. Try that one next time you approach mum or dad with a cracked screen. This is inspiring ‘Make what’s next’ - girls and women need to be designing products for us and for everyone.

A creative challenge – the power of STEM to do good

Do you love drawing or designing?

Do you think you are creative?

Do you have good ideas? Or enjoy solving problems?

Have you ever thought of working at Microsoft or a company like it?

Did you know that 91% of young girls and women describe themselves as creative and stress the importance of creativity in any future career? Why do you think so many of us have decided that Computer Science and Technology careers are not creative?

One of the challenges we completed at the Digigirlz event was to design and make a prototype of an everyday object for someone who suffers with a disability of some kind; someone who is vision impaired, hearing impaired, has short term memory problems, limited mobility, is an amputee or has dyslexia using a Micro:Bit and craft materials. We coded the Micro:Bit to work with motors, LED lights and play music. In the afternoon we pitched our product to Haiyan Zhang, Innovation Director at Microsoft Research and Cindy Rose, Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft UK.

We were in two groups making our prototypes. One group designed a camera to read text out loud so to help people with learning disabilities such as dyslexia. Another group designed a device that you could carry around and it would tell you if the doorbell rang. This would help someone who is hearing impaired.

Looking to the future

Many of us will be doing jobs in the future that don’t actually exist yet, maybe as a ‘NUI designer’ (natural user interface) or as an ‘Envisioning expert’.

So, think about your future. Do you want a secure job in the future? There will be so many to choose from in technology. Technology jobs are among the fastest growing in the country, but only 24% of computer scientists are women. More than 500,000 highly skilled workers will be needed to fill digital roles by 2022. That's three times the number of UK computer science graduates that we currently have from the past 10 years. And only 5% of those have been women. So, start thinking ahead about how you can #MakeWhatsNext.