The average age of the female coders surveyed is 21.91 years old, whereas that of the male coders is 20.58 years old. Males, on average, have about one more year of coding experience than females (3.30 years versus 2.68 years, respectively). Many females start coding later than, and therefore may have less technical experience than, their male counterparts.

Of the males and females who have attended hackathons, men have attended an average of 4.28 hackathons, almost two hackathons more than the women’s average of 2.36 hackathons. Hackathons aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, but they provide techies with a one-stop opportunity to seek out mentorship, try their hand at entrepreneurship, network, and, above all, to gain valuable technical skills outside of the classroom.

On a scale from 1 (worst) to 5 (best), the average woman rates her technical expertise in her favorite programming language/skill over a half point lower (3.00/5 average) than the average man (3.68/5 average).

The women that I surveyed are overall less confident about their ability to succeed in the tech industry than men. There is nearly a one point difference in confidence between males (4.32/5 average) and females (3.45/5 average). Perhaps this could be enough to steer women away from the tech industry.