When Kaya walked into her first STEM From Dance camp in the summer of 2022, she was eleven years old, just out of the pandemic, and not used to being around other kids. “I was very introverted back then,” she recalls. “I was really scared of making friends.” She was vaguely interested in coding and dance, but neither felt like a path forward.

Over the next four summers, and the years between, those interests sharpened into a clear trajectory. Now in ninth grade, Kaya codes in JavaScript, is learning Python on Saturdays, and knows she wants a career in “anything that has to do with programming.”

This is the story of how STEM From Dance helped her see her future.

The Spark: Coding Her First Drone

Kaya’s stepmom found the program through a late-stage ad. She wasn’t sure she’d get in. She did. The first year was small: twenty-something girls in a room at NYU, dancing, coding, learning how to make tech and make friends.

Kaya was amazed by what she accomplished in such a short time. “I’d never used a drone before, and I coded one,” she says, remembering her astonishment four years later.

The first year of Camp also introduced Kaya to something she hadn’t expected: that dance and coding actually fit together. “When I was first going there, I really wanted to see how it would connect, because I was like, ‘Wow, dancing and coding, how’s that gonna work?’” she says. “But it actually connected really well.”

A Model Built for Her

STEM From Dance Camp worked for Kaya because it was designed for her. The program assumes no prior knowledge but encourages curiosity. Facilitators explain, demonstrate, let girls try, struggle, and try again. Participants solve problems in groups and as individuals in the same hour.

“They do a really good job at explaining everything and starting from beginner level,” Kaya says. “They teach you everything. They go over it, they answer your questions, they let you do group work and figure out stuff on your own instead of fully teaching you. It’s very interactive.”

The other important piece, for Kaya, was who was in the room. “I did like that it was all girls, and I thought that was really cool, and especially all girls and then also girls of color. It was just very diverse.”

She came back the next summer. And the next.

Four Years of Specific STEM

Across four years of camp, the skills Kaya learned are specific, tangible, and getting more sophisticated each summer. “My favorite years were when we used LED lights,” she says. “They would light up on your costume during certain movements or if you pressed a button.” She has also coded animations that move with the choreography. “It was cool that we got to dance and make movements, and then code things to move along with us.”

To outsiders, the dance integration may seem like an add-on. But for Kaya and the other participants, dance is the key that allows them to turn technical concepts into reality. By the time their costumes light up in response to their movements, the code is no longer just symbols on a screen. It’s something they understand creatively and technically.

Eyes on MIT and Beyond

In eighth grade, Kaya took a tour of MIT. She bought a sweater on that tour. She still wears it. “I really want to go to MIT for college,” she says.

She’s just as clear when it comes to her career: “Computer programming, computer engineering, stuff like that. That’s what I want my career to be in: any type of coding.”

The girl who arrived at her first Camp scared to make friends, now visualizes a future in tech. But what Kaya says STEM From Dance taught her is bigger than any single aspiration or skill.

“It’s really helped me try new things, challenging things. That’s probably what it’s helped me with the most,” she says. “Even if you make mistakes or get things wrong, it's okay. You can just try again. And it's good to try difficult things, even if you don't know if you're going to be good at it or not.”