I remember when I was in high school, I had a girl classmate who took AP Computer Science online to pad her resume and get into college. Somewhere along the lin

I remember when I was in high school, I had a girl classmate who took AP Computer Science online to pad her resume and get into college. Somewhere along the line she starts asking for help and seeing how I was the only one who knew any programming I volunteered to help. I didn't know very much Java, just knew programming from learning Perl, but Java was easy enough to pick up. Initially, I was excited. Hey, here's this girl taking computer science. But towards the end, I think I'm the only one who walked away really learning Java and ended up "coaching" her through all her homework, basically just telling her what to type although trying to make sure she understood the concepts each step of the way. I ended up disappointed because she only wanted to pad her resume instead of really learn computer science. Maybe it was taking the class online that didn't let her get interested in the subject, or maybe she just wanted to get the grade and get it over with. The point is, I think we need to do a better job getting kids in general interested in computer science, not just girls, if we want more girls to go into computer science. Get rid of this misconception that it's just graybeards in a dark room hacking away through the night and put it in kids heads that computer science, or even just programming, is something everyone can do and have fun doing. And maybe try to de-emphasize getting a grade as a goal and emphasize actual learning as a goal. But most importantly, expand computer science availability in high school, so you don't have to resort to taking online classes, which I think are a bad idea in general but particularly bad for kids in high school who are still developing study habits.