Nikita Rau is a high school senior and, at this moment, drinking applekiwi-strawberry juice out of a plastic cup. We’re in the cafeteria of Bronx High School of Science, in New York. The noise level is high–too high for older ears–but the kids seem excited. Or maybe frenzied would be a better word.
It’s around 3:30 p.m. on the second Monday of the new school year, otherwise known as club-fair day. Sipping her juice, Rau moves to straighten a pile of brochures for XX Hackers, the computer-coding club she started last year. The group is modeled on Girls Who Code (hence the XX), the tech-friendly startup summer program that got Rau excited about computer science in the first place.
A skeptical-looking girl approaches, and Rau launches into her pitch. When Rau wants something, or wants to convince somebody of something, the intensity of her focus is almost intimidating. Five-foot-four with long limbs and wavy hair pulled into a ponytail over her shoulder, she is nothing but polite and enviably poised, especially when compared with the shrieking teens literally running in circles around her. She locks in on the girl, who, despite Rau’s salesmanship, eventually walks away.
Still, others are intrigued. By the time I arrived, XX Hackers had already collected several full pages of sign-ups. “Most of them are girls, so it’s working out,” Rau tells me while retrieving pens from a pink pencil case in her backpack. The original idea had been for Rau and a couple of other Girls Who Code graduates to teach programming only to other girls, but there was enough early interest from boys that they decided to open it to everyone. A group of guys now approach and sign up, but then one notices the club’s logo–XX HACKERS in bright pink, surrounded by pink dots and a light green circle with scalloped edges–and starts shouting. “XX Hackers? No! That’s for girls.” Another waves his arms and shakes his head, saying, “Disregard,” over and over. Boys are stupid, I think to myself, but Rau is Zen about it. When all is said and done, Rau estimates that about a third of the sign-ups she got were a result of her hard sell. She ended up with about 100 names total, added to the 50 she got last spring at a fair for incoming freshmen. It’s too early to say how many of those will come to the first meeting–and of those, how many will come back–but for the moment, she’s pleased.
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