When sophomore Alex Williams walks into a classroom, she’s almost always surrounded by guys. That’s because Williams in the College of Computer and Information Science, where women are the minority: Out of 520 total, only 50 are female.
“I don’t really mind being one of the only girls, but I’ve been called ‘bro’ more than a few times,” said Williams, who gets a decent amount of flak from her male classmates. When she got a “computer science Barbie” from her father last year she then picked up the nickname from many of her classmates.
Williams chose a dual major in information science and business because she likes to learn about the technical side of things. In the future, she hopes to go into business, but act as a liaison between businesses and computer programmers.
“A lot of times people that work in business don’t understand the logistics of computer science and computer scientists don’t know how to explain their code in layman’s terms,” said Williams, who will start at her first co-op this spring.
In addition to her classes, Williams also serves on the Fundraising Committee for Northeastern’s Relay for Life. Williams said she chose to join Relay for Life because she was involved in high school and has personal connections to the cause.
She is also a sister of Kappa Kappa Gamma and worked was an orientation leader this summer. As an orientation leader, Williams often worked with groups of incoming computer science students and had the ability to meet many of the women that plan on majoring in computer science as well – and the guys worried about not being able to meet girls in their classes.
Although she enjoys her classes, she says that many of the extracurriculars she participates in outside of school have made her college experience more meaningful.
“I had a professor ask me why I didn’t do a computer science internship this summer,” said Williams. “I told him that the experience I had as an orientation leader taught me more about myself and the person I want to be than any internship could have.”
Her advice to incoming freshmen? “Being involved isn’t the most important thing, but it’s about what’s finding important to you.”