#GHC15 Reflections

As you may have read from a previous post, this year the Monmouth Computer Science and Software Engineering department was represented at the 2015 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing by students and faculty. The students each shared with us a personal reflection on the trip and how they felt attending the conference helped them personally and professionally, and how appreciative they were of Monmouth’s CSSE Dept. and School of Science for making this possible. Here are some excerpts as the students discussed some of their take-aways from GHC15, all emphasis is ours...

"Attending the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing 2015 was one of the most life changing experiences I have ever had...Not only did I feel like I belonged at Grace Hopper but I felt that all of my identities were able to be celebrated. One of the most important sessions for me at Grace Hopper was the session regarding failure. It taught the group that it is okay to fail, and sometimes you have to hear a lot of no's before you hear any yes's. I heard the stories from women from all walks of life, and how they were able to fight through the failure to end up where they are now."

"This conference has changed my view about women in technology. Listening to speaker Blake Irving from GoDaddy talk about inequality in his company and how he's working towards creating a fair and equal work place was really eye opening... Irving challenging other companies to do the same and "shine a light" on their statistics gives me hope that one day we will see equal pay and opportunity for women in technology... Attending Grace Hopper introduced me to other aspects of technology I didn't know I was interested in, and has changed my direction and career goals for the future.... I met so many incredible people at this conference and am being contacted for amazing internship opportunities already."

“With so many people and companies at GHC, I was overloaded with ideas about how to bring these kinds of activities and events to Monmouth University and the IEEE club to better our students. It is not often you have so many active and driven people in one location to talk to, like at Grace Hopper.

GHC helped me to expand on ideas for events, and volunteer opportunities that students at Monmouth might want to get involved with. The talks and workshops also opened my eyes to the new technologies we will have to work with in the future, but how we as a society are still partially stuck in the past with gender inequality and biases in the work place… Along with this I was able to practice my elevator pitch at the career fair, and gain the confidence I needed to look for internships at GHC and back at home."

"For the first time ever I was in a tech community that was majority female, and honestly at the get go I wasn't sure if I truly belonged.... I am glad to say that this feeling did not continue throughout the conference... This was due to the amazing women that I met at the conference...These women came up to me, said hello and asked me to sit at their table, they didn't act like it was weird to have me...they just welcomed me into their group and into their conversation. At that point it all clicked for me; this is how women in the tech field usually felt...

I think that the most important thing that I was able to improve and learn over the course of the conference was learning to appreciate the other. GHC confirmed for me the notion that male or female, we as engineers are working towards a common goal and to achieve that goal we need to work together."

"This October, I had the privilege to attend the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing as a scholarship recipient... The four-day event in Houston Texas was filled with inspiring keynotes, informational sessions, and a vast amount of networking opportunities with talented professionals in the field. With a full time job as a software engineer waiting for me after graduation, I focused on attending events that would help me in my future endeavors… the founder of Code.org Hadi Partovi spoke about the importance of teaching young students to code...He believes that by diminishing the stereotypes associated with technology at a young age and exposing more young girls to coding through this movement will alleviate the gender divide that is seen in many tech companies." Another standout event I attended was the keynote given by YouTube's CEO Susan Wojcicki who spoke about work life balance and emphasized her strong stance on equal paid family leave... The Grace Hopper Conference is an empowering celebration of the strength of women and their critical contributions to the world of technology. It is a lively and informative event that has opened many doors for me as a student leader, engineer, and woman.