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"It's important for us to be proactive in doing what we can to break down those barriers and to bring as many people into this work as possible," he said. ICERM Director Brendan Hassett said the mission of Girls Get Math is to introduce a variety of career opportunities in which sophisticated mathematical ability plays a key role. Math skills are also vital to other professions where women are underrepresented, including banking, finance and business. While the number of careers in STEM continues to grow rapidly, women still hold less than a third of those jobs, according to the U.S. Keeping students like Maccarone and Siegel interested in math early in their high school career is critical to closing the gender gap for women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields, program leaders say. Today, Maccarone is a math major and a business minor at Villanova University and has plans to work in finance on Wall Street after graduating next year. They helped me realize that there's so much I can do with a math degree, from engineering to modeling, and it's why I continued pursuing math and realized this is what I want to do in college." "Girls Get Math gave me that real application that's lacking in the classroom. "When you are going through school, they don't necessarily show you how math concepts are applied in the real world," she said. It's a 180 from what many students encounter in their math classes."Įmerson Maccarone attended Girls Get Math as a rising sophomore because she was eager to find new opportunities to flex her math muscles outside her standard algebra and geometry classes. "We want to demonstrate different kinds of math - places where you can be super creative and collaborative, and where problems are open-ended. "We're trying to show students a side of math that they don't get to see for a long time, and unfortunately, by then, they've already lost interest," said Ott, an associate professor of mathematics at Bates College and a member of ICERM's education advisory board. Faculty leader Katharine Ott, who has organized the program since 2014, hopes it can demonstrate how the study of math can be exciting and fun to bolster girls' enthusiasm for math and science at the age when they often start losing interest and confidence. With a focus on experimentation and computation, Girls Get Math introduces students to math concepts not often included in the traditional high school curriculum. To learn about computer imaging, for example, students studied the math behind the image filters they use every day on Instagram. The program features a daily theme, covering topics across cryptography, data science, prime numbers, factoring and mathematical modeling. Through hands-on activities, games, interactive lectures and daily computer labs, Girls Get Math encourages students to explore mathematical topics in an open and encouraging setting. That summer, Siegel was one of 25 high school students - rising sophomores and juniors from all over Rhode Island - who came to Providence for the five-day mathematics program. "I had zero exposure to computer science and knew nothing about computers, and I wouldn't have started learning about computer science when I did or at all if it wasn't for Girls Get Math." "Girls Get Math was the first time I wrote any code," Siegel said. Founded and led by Brown's Institute for Computational and Experimental Research in Mathematics, one of just six federally funded math institutes in the nation, the program’s mission is to cultivate interest, inspire confidence and instill a sense of belonging for girls exploring math and science fields.
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What inspired her career trajectory? She credits, a mathematics program for high schoolers held at Brown University each summer.
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Fast forward seven years, and today, the young professional is working in cyber security and software engineering. PROVIDENCE, R.I. - As a high school student, Abigail Siegel had a natural aptitude for math but had trouble envisioning how she might turn her interest into a career.
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