High school girls are learning about coding and hacking this summer in efforts to encourage them to pursue a career in it.

A group of 28 high school girls from all over the city are participating in a three-week computer science summer program. It’s an initiative from the NYU Tandon School of Engineering.

These students are learning how to protect computers systems from being hacked by learning about encrypt messages and decoding words.

"We want to be able to allow students especially women students, those who are not well represented in the stem field to see if they like stem and provide them a gateway into this world,” says instructor Tanzila Rahman.

According to a 2017 Frost and Sullivan study, 11 percent of cybersecurity professionals are women.

These students have one week left and say they've already learned valuable skills.