Created this September, weEMPOWER: PHS is a newly formed club that intends to promote confidence among women and other underrepresented students through public speaking training and discussions about current events that impact women in particular. They hosted a seminar on January 27, where they invited Taye Johnson, a coder for Shutterfly, to speak about her experiences as a black woman in the coding industry.

“I started thinking about forming the club [because] I felt like sometimes, as a girl, I didn't have as much confidence to speak up. I saw that a lot of other girls [and] other minority groups might [feel] that way [too]. I thought that would be a really good idea to bring those people together and have a really open and accepting environment for them to share their ideas,” said Anjali Brunnermeier ’21, co-founder of weEMPOWER.

The club initially reached out to BUILT BY GIRLS, an organization that prepares females and non-binary students for technology-related careers, to ask for recommendations for speakers with knowledge of the coding industry. They decided to invite Taye Johnson because they felt she would have an interesting perspective as a woman of color in a majority-white, male-dominated field of work.

weEMPOWER structured the event as an interview with Johnson with the opportunity for audience members to ask questions at the end. Johnson spoke about her journey to become a coder for Shutterfly and the obstacles she overcame. She also addressed some of the misconceptions about the coding industry and gave advice to those who are less comfortable with public speaking.

Nationally, the number of female computer science majors decreased from 37 percent to 18 percent between 1984 and 2014, despite the fact that the amount of jobs in the computer science industry is triple the national average.

Abby Lau ’20 mentioned how powerful it was to hear Johnson’s story, as a woman who is interested in going into the STEM field.

“I was actually really shocked because going into [the event], I thought it would just be like a casual discussion... but I was really blown away [by] the speaker,” said Lau. “[Johnson] didn't go to high school all four years; she dropped out for financial reasons. And she still found her way up into a successful career. Now [she] mentors, other young women who are minorities [who] want to go into STEM. I think that’s so inspiring. I would want to be a mentor like that too.”