A Cybersecurity Camp for Girls

摘要

The demand for cybersecurity analysts and awareness is increasing, the employment of information security analysts is projected to grow 37 percent from 2012 to 2022, much faster than the average for all occupations. Today, women represent just 10 percent of the cybersecurity workforce. Thus, to increase the amount of people going into cybersecurity, primarily women, we must start at the base: schools. There, we can emphasize the need for being cyber savvy and also address the need to have balanced teams of men and women. In 2015, we hosted a Girls Cybersecurity Camp for years 9 through 12 that was primarily planned and hosted by female undergraduate students. With 38 attendees, student mentors and faculty prepared a series of workshops, seminars and activities designed to educate and inspire girls to consider potential career paths in cybersecurity. Due to the success of this project, we are planning a bigger and more significant event for the summer of 2016 along with a supplemental series of workshops for STEM teachers at middle and high-schools. In this paper we discuss the methods and implementation of our 2015 summer camp. We look at the perceived strengths and weaknesses of our approach to identify successful aspects and recommend improvements for the coming year. By including data from entry and exit surveys, we are able to comprehensively analyze both the perceived impact of our camp from the attendee's perspective. We also acknowledge and thank Microsoft and Facebook for their generous financial support of this effort.