CodeGirls, formerly Girls Who Code, announced their departure from the Girls Who Code organization on Monday, Sept. 19 during their first meeting of the year. By branching off from the national program, CodeGirls hopes to stray away from the standardized curriculum imposed by the club and create a more member-friendly environment.

“Last year we were with the Girls Who Code affiliation,” Club President Saumya Prakash ‘17 said. “They changed their curriculum and it became, basically, another class. There were grades [and] it was all very structured, so no one was really having any fun.”

Because of unpopularity of the reformed curriculum last year, the club officers met and decided to leave the Girls Who Code program. They created CodeGirls, a club oriented towards attracting more girls to enter the field of computer science.

“[Our] primary goal is to encourage girls to join the computer science field because there are so few of them,” Prakash said. “We hope to get more girls involved and hope to influence future stats to say that girls are now part of computer science.”

To increase interest in the club, members took a vote to decide the future structure of the club, in the end agreeing to have lessons in different coding languages centered around monthly mini-projects.

“We decided that within our first week, we’re going to learn some basic HTML and CSS, then at the end of the first term, have a full website,” Club Treasurer Aditi Merchant ‘19 said. “There should be a lot less rigid structure to the club, so it’s going to be more about what you want to do and not what somebody else wants you to do. We’re hoping that the students will like this more.”

Returning members also expressed optimism about the new project-oriented approach the club is taking this year.

“Last year it was very straightforward and it was honestly a little boring,” Sonia Shrotriya ‘19 said, “but this year, it seems like it will be more interesting. I want to see how the club will change.”

Despite changes to the club’s structure, CodeGirls looks forward to starting a great year. Its next meeting will be held on Monday at 4:20-6:00 p.m. in Ms. Brooks’s room in E2314.