As soon as Percentage Project President and Co-Founder Stephanie Tang first stepped into her AP computer science class, she realized she was the only female student in her grade.

Almost two years ago, as part of a “Responsible CS” initiative, the Ethics Teaching Assistant position was created. Now, the program — which has since been rebranded as the Socially Responsible Teaching Assistant — continues to expand and work toward integrating ethics and social impact into computer science courses.

In early spring, before COVID-19 had officially been deemed a pandemic and the semester moved online, the University’s Department of Computer Science was one of the first to begin moving its operations online.

In today’s world, people turn to their phones and computers in search of information, expecting relevant results at the click of a button. Computers use their ability to recognize language to return personalized results to users in seconds.

In recent years, The Herald has published several articles and op-eds about growing enrollment in computer science, including suggestions on how to address the resulting challenges that students face. We appreciate this attention and care toward the student experience.

In recent years, the computer science department has exploded. In 2015, 133 students graduated with a concentration or joint concentration in computer science. By 2019­­ — just four years later — that number had skyrocketed to 259, an increase of almost 95 percent.

For most of my career at Brown, I was a computer science naysayer. As an underclassman, I thought the only reason to learn to code was to pursue jobs at tech giants like Google or Facebook.

Palantir Technologies, a software company based out of Silicon Valley, recently renewed a three-year contract to provide crucial products to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Imagine grabbing a block from a stack on a table, throwing a ball toward a caricature in your backyard in a game of Pokemon GO or lighting up a dim room — only to realize that the cubes, the ball, the Pokemon pal and the illuminating lantern do not actually exist.

The computer science department increased wages this semester for Undergraduate Teaching Assistants and Head Teaching Assistants by 10 percent and 15 percent respectively.