????如何提高年輕女性對科學、技術、工程學和數學領域的興趣？這個話題在今年的商界女強人峰會上再次被人們提起。針對這個問題，哈維瑪德學院校長（Harvey Mudd College）瑪利亞?克拉維提出了最具可行性的實施方案。

????2005年克拉維在學院上任時，計算機科學專業的畢業生中只有10%是女性。到去年，這個比例達到了40%，幾乎是全國平均水平的4倍。

????克拉維和教員們是如何做到這一點的？他們首先觀察了女性不愿涉足這一領域的原因。克拉維說：“第一，她們覺得自己不會喜歡這一領域；第二，她們覺得自己不會擅長這一領域；第三，她們覺得諸如計算機科學這類專業的學生都是怪胎，不懂生活，沒有情調。她們可不想被人看成那樣。”

????教員們修改了入門課程，將以前的“直接編程”改為一門叫做“在科學和工程學中使用計算方法解決問題”的課程，試圖借此扭轉人們的成見。“老觀念認為學習編程是為了學會編程，而我們的新理念告訴大家學習編程是為了解決有趣的問題，這個轉變讓學科的形象煥然一新，”她說。“因為我們知道，女性會對‘你可以用計算機做什么’這類問題感興趣。”

????克拉維說，計算機科學系的入門課程非常有趣，于是女學生們接著選了第二門課。到了學習第三門課的時候，她們已經有機會去做一份很不錯的暑期工作了。那時她們也了解到：學習計算機科學聽起來并沒有那么極端。只要愿意，等到了大四的時候，她們每個人都可以獲得五個工作機會。

????學院還給所有大一新生出資，讓她們參加格雷斯?霍普慶典，以慶祝女性在計算機領域的成就。今年，哈維瑪德學院從750名學生中挑選出58名參加了周三在巴爾的摩舉行的慶典。

????克拉維向觀眾們強調，最大的困難在于改變人們對計算機科學的成見。她希望父母在女兒們進入大學之前，不要強迫她們選擇這一領域，因為“整個文化都讓年輕女性認為這不是她該學的，她不擅長這個。”

????從媒體的角度，她舉了情景喜劇《老友記》（Friends）中錢德勒作為例證。錢德勒的工作是數據處理，但是一直以來都沒有人知道。她說：“如果我能揮動魔杖讓夢想成真，我要讓電視劇向人們展示那些迷人的年輕女性，而她們實際上都是計算機科學家。”

????對那些希望讓女性進入這個行業的觀眾，她的首要建議是讓他們鼓勵年輕女性在大一選修一門計算機科學的課程，還有就是讓他們向計算機科學系捐款，鼓舞教員們把教學大綱設計得更加有趣，更加平易近人。“至于電視劇，”她說，“我真的很希望有這么一部連續劇。”

????譯者：嚴匡正

????One of the recurring topics at this year's Most Powerful Women Summit revolved around how to get more young women interested in science, technology, engineering, and math. The most promising case study on how to do it came from Maria Klawe, president of Harvey Mudd College.

????When Klawe started at Harvey Mudd in 2005, 10% of graduates with computer science degrees were women. Last year that figure jumped to about 40%, a rate nearly four times the national average.

????How did she and her faculty do it? They first looked at why women don't enter the field to begin with: "No. 1, they think they won't like it, No. 2 they think they won't be good at it, and No. 3 they think the people who major in computer science are geeks who have no life, and they don't want to be seen as that," Klawe said.

????The faculty attempted to alter those perceptions by changing the introductory course from straight programming to a class called computational approaches to solving problems in science and engineering. "This whole idea that instead of learning to program to learn to program, learn to program in order to solve fun problems -- it frames it totally differently," she said, "because we know women are interested in computers for what you can do with them."

????Klawe says that the computer science department makes the first course so much fun that female students take the second course, and by the time they're taking the third course, they have a great summer job lined up and the idea of being a computer science major doesn't sound that radical. If they want it, these women could have five job offers by the time they're starting their senior year, Klawe said.

????The college also offers to pay for all incoming female first-year students to attend the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. Harvey Mudd is bringing 58 of its 750 students to this year's conference, which started on Wednesday in Baltimore.

????Klawe stressed to the audience that a big hurdle is changing the way computer science is perceived. She discouraged parents from getting their daughters into the field before college because," the whole culture is swaying young women to say this is not for me, I won't be good at it."

????From a media perspective, she brought up the example of Chandler on the sitcom Friends. Chandler was in data processing but no one ever knew it, she noted. "If I could wave my magic wand and have one thing happen," she said, "I'd have a TV series that shows attractive young women who have lives who are actually working as computer scientists."

????Her top tips for the audience to get women into the industry were to encourage young women to take one computer science class their first year of college, and to donate money to computer science departments to encourage them to make their program less intimidating and more fun. "And that TV series," she said. "I really want it."