Tell us why you want to attend GHC. What type of impact will being at a celebration focused on women in computer science have on you? (200 words)
Tell us why you want to attend GHC
Grace Hopper Celebrating
Tell us why you want to attend GHC. What type of impact will being at a celebration focused on women in computer science have on you? (200 words)
How will you share your experience at GHC with other? What type of Impact will your experience at GHC have on others in your community? (200 words)
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Reasons Why You Should (Definitely) Attend GHC
If you are a woman studying Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Mathematics, or ANY subject related to Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, I strongly recommend to you to check out everything about Anita Borg Institute, Systers, ACM-W, and Grace Hopper Celebration, and all their events, workshops, and initiatives to support women in computing.
In 2017 was my first time attending GHC, also my first time as a Scholar (thank you, Stripe! 🙂 ). Grace Hopper Conference is the world’s biggest celebration for women in computing, honoring Grace Hopper, an American computer scientist, and a pioneer in computer programming (she invented one of the first compiler related tools).
Grace Hopper Celebration is a conference full of inspiration, energy, with a huge women technologists’ community.
If you feel you are a minority in you engineering classes, you should go to GHC to discover there are thousands of women like you, ready to share life experience, and very excited about technology! I just came back from GHC ’17, and I want to share with you 11 reasons why you should definitely go to GHC 2018:
You will build (or expand!) your networking: as a scholar (or as an attendee), you are provided many events to engage with other women, and make connections, talk to women in different levels of their education and careers;
You will learn more about different technology fields — the conference provides many talks, presentations, and workshops. Before the conference, you can arrange your own schedule, and go to the ones you are more interested in. I learned a lot of product management, program management, and data science.
You will learn more about yourself, about your passions in technology, about your strengths, and weakness. You will find many other women that feel the same way as you — you will see you are not alone, and you will find out your fears are nothing if compared with your strengths (you go, girl!);
You will (very likely) get an interview with your desired company — but, in order to happen, prepare yourself, search for positions one or two months prior to the conference, do your research about which companies will be attending GHC, and prepare a good resume to insert on the GHC database;
You will discover what an Open Source Day is — I’ve never participated in a hackathon or code-a-thon before — and I did it at GHC — a good experience;
Inspiration, Goosebumps & More Inspiration — you will definitely leave the conference with a lot of energy and very inspired, I had the pleasure of listening from some incredible female minds, such as Melinda Gates, Dr Fei-Fei Li, Dr. Sue Black, Megan Smith, and many others;
You will make FRIENDS — I met some people that I was talking to before the conference — Brazilians, Asians, Americans — meeting in person and sharing experiences was one of the conference’s highlights for me;
You will meet people from your country — as an international student, it was incredible hearing many women speaking Portuguese at the conference. Meeting more women from your country that are also pursuing a dream in technology is empowering;
You will enjoy the city of Houston — yes! You work hard, but if you plan to stay some days before (or some days after) the conference, you will be able to enjoy the city hosting GHC — Houston, TX, next year, baby!
You will (perhaps *fingers crossed*) get a job offer. Yay! The chances to get a job offer from an interview or your submitted resume at the conference are huge — but, again, you should prepare yourself for that (tip: if your focus is to meet as many recruiter as possible and get an internship/full-time job for the next semester, I recommend you to put your efforts on the career fair on the first/second day, so the company will be able to schedule an interview for the week, during the conference.
Last, but not least, you will feel empowered, and your sense of belonging in technology will be increased. You will feel the same need I am feeling now: to help and encourage other girls and women to grow in their careers in technology.