Organization Spotlight: Girls Who Code
Nathaniel Valyo
Stillman News Editor
The Stillman Exchange recently sat down with Juliana Macias, a senior in the Stillman School of Business, to learn more about the new Girls Who Code chapter on campus.
Q. Tell us a little bit about yourself: name, major, hometown, etc.
A. My name is Juliana Macias, I am a senior triple majoring in Finance, Marketing, and Information Technology Management in the Stillman School of Business, and I am an international student from Colombia.
Q. What is the organization you are a part of? What leadership roles do you hold?
A. I am the Founding President of our new Girls Who Code chapter at Seton Hall University. Girls Who Code is a national non-profit organization working to close the gender gap in technology and they have over 200 university-level networks around the country called “College Loops.”
Q. What prompted you to start this group?
A. During the spring semester of 2020, I took my first introduction to programming course and completely fell in love with the field of technology. As one of only five women in the class, I became more aware of the need for a supportive community on campus to inspire women to break out of our comfort zones and learn about the importance of technology for any career in the future. For this reason, by the time the fall semester started, I had completed my research and application and gathered a powerful group of women to start our own ‘Girls Who Code’ chapter at Seton Hall University. I felt incredibly inspired by their mission to close the gender gap in tech and seized the opportunity to make an impact in my community.
Q. Who should join the organization you are a part of, and why? What is your mission statement?
A. Girls Who Code’s mission statement is to educate, equip, and inspire girls with the computing skills they will need to pursue 21st century opportunities. In other words, we like to welcome our members from diverse backgrounds, academic interests, years, and professional goals to learn about the importance of technology for any career in the future.
Q. What are your goals this upcoming semester for the organization?
A. Our events cover a range of different topics under each one of our three programming pillars: Sisterhood, Technical Skills, and Career Development. In this sense, we provide our members with a mixture of community building, educational, and networking events with the support of Girls Who Code National and our Seton Hall Community. Our goal is to help our members grow both professionally and personally under each one of our pillars and also ensure long-term success of our chapter. This semester, we are holding our next executive board elections and opening the applications to anyone who is interested in helping our organization continue to grow.
Q. What kind of events do you plan on hosting, and how often will they be?
A. We host 2-3 events per month depending on our member’s availability and programming of events. For this semester we are already working on a few networking events and workshops with professionals and recruiters from companies like Facebook and Cisco, and we are also excited to introduce our GWC Programming Series! This program will allow our members to gain hands-on learning experiences as we transform our ideas into tangible projects that we will deliver as a chapter using all the technology and programming languages that we will learn throughout the year. Some of the projects we will work on as part of this series is creating our own website, building data visualization dashboards, and even coding our own Flappy Bird game through platforms like Scratch.
Q. What do you plan to get out of this group? How do you think it will prepare you for life after Seton Hall?
A. Personally, I will start working in Technology Consulting after graduation so the technical and soft skills that I gain during this experience will undoubtedly help me stand out and succeed in my professional career. However, what I find most rewarding about this type of leadership experience is knowing that I am leaving a legacy for education and women empowerment. I love being able to inspire younger generations to get out of our comfort zones and knowing that all of our hard-work and effort is worth it at the end of the day for the impact that we can create in our community.
Contact Juliana at maria.macias@student.shu.edu