By Lucy Wang, Co-Director of BrandRead on MediumIt's 9 AM in Bristol, CT and Alison Kohl walks into ESPN headquarters for a big day. The 2014 FIFA World Cup has been breaking live streaming records for sporting events, and Kohl's team developed the WatchESPN app. The USA is playing Germany, and it's expected to be the most streamed sporting event of all time; the team makes sure everything is in place.Meanwhile on the west coast, Raiyan Khan walks into the Functional Imaging in Neuropsychiatric Disorders (FIND) Lab at Stanford University, where she will spend her day using image processing tools and techniques to extract hippocampal information from MR images of individuals with Alzheimer's Disease.Two completely different worlds, and yet their internships share one huge commonality - computer science.Computer science is ubiquitous - it exists in every field and it permeates our lives, every moment of every day. It's there in the morning, when our fitness wearable makes sure not to wake us up during REM sleep. It's there at lunch, when we've forgotten our credit card, but it doesn't matter because we can pay with our phones. And it's there at night, when we're able to get where we are going without planning ahead, because with a click of a button we'll always have a ride.Wherever you look, there is always a need for computing. You can truly take any interest, combine it with computer science, and do something that you love.Unfortunately, many women are deterred from the computer science major because it's such a male dominated field. Instead, they will choose to study a field that they perceive to be closer to their interests, while in reality, the interdisciplinary nature of computer science makes it a major you can tailor to any passion.It is this very insight that inspired Alison Kohl (Stanford '15) and Raiyan Khan (Stanford '15) to direct the she++ College Ambassador Program. she++'s newest initiative aims to foster communities that promote diversity in technology by providing resources to college students interested in increasing the accessibility of computer science at their college or university."Technology is changing the way every industry operates, and studying computer science can put you at the forefront of this evolution," said Kohl."The effects of the she++ College Ambassador Program will be two pronged," Khan said. "First, by making computer science more accessible at colleges where it is not currently, and second, by strengthening the network of existing computer science communities."For Kohl and Khan, the College Ambassador Program is about bringing valuable insights about computer science to college campuses. "Our College Ambassadors will share what they have found to be true about computer science with their peers with the goal of dispelling myths about the field," Kohl said. "We are reshaping the environment for female technologists, one community at a time."
