TWTW- Week 2, September 2018
Activities of week 2 of WIT learning program — Rethink Foundation.
The Week That Was.. #discover
As the second week of the program started coming to an end, I had learned a whole bunch of new things! It’s as if every thing I always wanted to do tomorrow was getting done today. The program is getting extremely fun! It has this positivity which somehow even after all the hectic schedules gets everyone to keep up.
This week we had to complete 3 tasks :
- TWTW — which is this article
- Wiki Page on our choice of opportunity
- Have our first one-on-one call with our program coach this week
On 11th September 2018, we began the next set of activities for the week. At 7:00pm sharp Arya Murali came online and we all were given 2 minutes to mark our attendance with the help of the rethink telegram bot.
One thing I learned: Always respect other people’s time as much as you respect your own.
The next thing we were asked to do was to search for 3 opportunities (they could be related to anything) and tweet about them as and when we found them. The only criteria was that the opportunity should interest us. We were asked include @rethinkcollect in the tweets so that even they could keep track of the opportunities.
I found out 3 new opportunities that I never new about. They were :
- pyladies.com — A community for Women Python enthusiasts
- hiremorewomenintech.com — A website which lists endless opportunities for women in tech
- girlsintech.org — A global non-profit focused on the engagement, education and empowerment of girls and women who are passionate about technology.
We then had to update these to the Wiki page for Cohort 1 so that everyone could easily access and benefit from all the opportunities that were found by us that day.
Next, we had to each choose 2 opportunities from which one would get finalized, along with 2 coaches that we liked. I really want to apply for Outreachy and GHC, hence I updated the same on the Wiki page.
Updating on the Wiki was a great idea to keep track of where everyone. This would also help us to have basic knowledge of how to update any page on Wikipedia.
Arya Murali helped finalize which opportunity each one of should work on according to our interests and goals.
On 13th September 2018, we had our next activity. This activity included emailing any 3 coaches of our choice whom we wanted to be guided by during the program. We had to complete our first call within this week itself and had to e-mail the coaches right after the activity for that day was completed. Even though I was extremely tired after a long day at college, I thought of the opportunity I had in front of me and got to work.
All the coaches have scheduled and kept 15 minutes of their week just for us, it was our responsibility to utilize their time to the fullest. I emailed 3 of the coaches I really would’ve loved to be guided by among which Paavini Nanda accepted my request. She is a GHC 18 scholar, GSoC 18 Mentor and RGSoC 18 scholar.
I had an amazing chat with Paavini Nanda on my first appear call on 12th September 2018, Saturday. She even spent an extra half an hour just to give me and amiya abraham more advices and tips. Thank you so much Paavini Nanda you are truly inspiring! Here is the article I wrote about the call with her:
At the same time, I had a really tough time sending emails to the other 2 coaches and conveying to them that I could have only one coach in the program. It was indeed an extremely tough decision. I hope that I would get an opportunity to get to know them both as well ! Nikita Mallya and amalu susan santhosh thank you both so much! Nikita Mallya has always supported me from my first year in college and I know she will always be on my side. She is extremely enthusiastic and energetic! On the other hand I do not know amalu susan santhosh personally and hope to meet her and get to know her too!
The final task was to create a Wikipedia page for the opportunity of my choice. I knew I had to only refer the official website for GHC so as to get the accurate data. I googled for the official website and used the resources to help me make a new Opportunity wiki page. It’s actually really simple! All you have to do is follow the steps given in this link.
Here it is :
Apart from these 3 main tasks, I along with Elsa Maria George and Mridula Pillai volunteered to make a poster for the WIT Learning Program Cohort 1. We collaborated using an online tool called canva.com. I am extremely excited for the day when we launch the poster! Elsa Maria George and Mridula Pillai you both are amazing and really passionate women in tech. It was really great working with both of you!
Key takeaways from this week :
- Don’t wait for tomorrow. Tomorrow never comes!
- Be prepared in advance for everything.
- Everyone’s time is valuable. Respect it.
- Try to make people feel good, it will make you and the person extremely happy.
- It’s okay to make mistakes, no one is perfect! But it is important to give it a try and be open to feedback.
Looking forward to learning a lot more in the upcoming weeks in the WIT Learning program. Stay tuned for more :)
