Christina Modica

Professor Byrd

WGST 3102

30 April, 2019

Final Reflection

In general, the solutions to creating a more inclusive STEM field are surrounded around

the gender binary, and focus on a flawed view of what girls need to succeed in STEM fields.

Most solutions focus at one point, or on one facet of girl’s education. These solutions and

programs often lack support to create an environment for girls and women to succeed.

Sometimes they aren’t created with an intersectional focus – only seeing the issues of women in

STEM from a single perspective. While this isn’t a large issue since having solutions that hyper

focus on one aspect can be helpful, so one solution doesn’t have to carry the weight of

coordinating all the solutions. An issue is that the previous solutions are not coordinating with

each other, and they can be more effective once they begin to coordinate.

I developed what I wanted to do with the research from this project, by looking at the

current solutions, and looking how they can be approached from a more comprehensive and

feminist perspective. Sandra Harding’s work about women in science really guided my work

over this year. Her theories on the importance of having women in the creation of knowledge,

highlighted the importance of having women in STEM.

 These solutions are very much directed toward younger women, educators and professors

in the College of Computing and Informatics at UNCC. The people most interested in this

research would most likely be the educators and camp founders for girls in science.

While working on my solutions, I chose to develop my solutions by looking at what

solutions I knew of, and had experienced, and how to improve them to be more intersectional.

The summer camp was the first idea I had thought of, and working to make a more

comprehensive and intersectional event is a way to affect the local community. Changing the

Computing Professionals diversity curriculum is a way to make sure the community in UNC

Charlotte is promoting equity in computer science. While planning the logistics of these

solutions, space and money quickly became an issue for the summer camp.

The easiest things to decide is the when determining these solutions is the purpose of the

solution and what you will do about it. The hardest thing is scaling it to a reasonable idea, and

coming up with a way to raise funds. Making sure the solution is intersectional is not the hardest

thing, but it is quite difficult to make sure you are trying to be as accessible as possible.

This project was interesting. I liked being able to plan a solution to problem that affects

my life, and coming up with a solution to it made me appreciate the work done by community

leaders more. I can use this information to create a more inclusive STEM summer camp, which

is the dream here. I would have liked more guidance on the creation of the solutions, and more

opportunities to research and analyze previous solutions. This project was a great application, but

I feel like there was a lot less work done in comparison to the MGP.

I could totally implement this solution, but it would not be easy. I would worry about

doing another summer camp while there are already quite a few in the charlotte area catering to
girls. My effort could also be spent helping with one of the camps, or creating another solution to

impact the lives of girls. The benefits to creating this solution, is that it would be a great

opportunity for the student clubs on campus to work together, and for there to be more

opportunities for girls interested in STEM to find something to do over the summer. This project

relates to my overall experience as a student in Gen-X by showing how this learning community

connected me to feminist based resources in the Charlotte area, and inspired me to look for

STEM programs and resources in the Charlotte area.