To understand what type of woman chooses computing as a career, theCUBE spoke to Cornelia Davis (pictured), senior director of technology at Pivotal Software Inc. during the Women Transforming Technology Conference in Palo Alto, CA. Davis said her first reaction to computer science was essentially: Yuck.

Davis told Rebecca Knight (@knightrm), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile live streaming studio, a story about returning to high school one year and looking up her classes. (*Disclosure below.)

“I had this computer class on my schedule, and I was like, ‘No, no no, no. There is no way I’m doing this,'” she said. She was so turned off, she skipped the first two or three classes.

“And then I finally went and curiosity got the better of me, and I tried it out, and I was hooked,” she said.

Years later, enjoying a successful career in technology, Davis is seeing first hand that her experience is not as peculiar as it may seem.

Decoding gender and tech

Through her work with Girls Who Code, it is déjà vu again and again for Davis.

“In the summer they have a seven-week immersion program where they bring girls in, and they basically learn to code from nine to five every day for seven weeks,” she said.

Davis said that many girls groan that they are not remotely interested in coding or computers. “The same people are standing up at the graduation ceremony at the end of the seven weeks, saying, ‘This changed my life,'” she said. For example, one of these girls has gone on to major in computer science at Northwestern University.

While Davis fully endorses Girls Who Code, they generally target high school girls, which is a bit late for computing in her opinion.

“It absolutely, hundred percent, needs to be part of primary school curriculum so that they can get hooked and understand what it is before they self-select out,” she said.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of the Women Transforming Technology 2017 event. (*Disclosure: TheCUBE is a media partner at the conference. Neither VMware Inc. nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE