Author: Ruth    Leopold

Major: New Media

Graduation Year: 2017

Thesis Advisor: Jon Ippolito

Description of Publication: “In the last two decades, the proportion of women earning bachelor’s degrees in computer sciences has declined from 28% to 18% (NSF/NCSES 2015c), even though the proportion of freshmen women declaring a computer sciences major when first enrolled in a 4-year institution has remained stable (at about 20% in recent years)” (NSF, Retention of Women in Computer Science). My undergraduate capstone aims to lessen the amount of women dropping out of computing fields by creating a sense of community. The key components and benefits of community that I targeted were peer support, shared experience, confidence and interest. I approached each of these topics on their own, and created a website to bring together the different parts of the project. I have benefitted greatly from what I have learned over the course of this project, and my hope is that this will be passed on to those who engage in the project.

Location of Publication:

• fogler
• reynolds

URL to Thesis: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/honors/281/