East Oakland high school students visit tech companies and meet diverse tech staff at field trips, beginning with Amazon Web Services (AWS)!

Over 60 high school seniors and educators took BART from Coliseum Station in East Oakland to visit AWS offices in downtown San Francisco as part of Girl Geek X’s adopt-an-Oakland-school partnership with nonprofit Oakland Public Education Fund.

The students hail from CCPA, a public Oakland school in East Oakland, California with the highest college-going rate in the district despite being located in one of Oakland’s highest poverty neighborhoods.

CCPA Computer Science teacher Shrotriyee Jacque teaches classes on Java, Javascript, and data science. Educators welcome increased collaboration between industry and academia to inspire students to envision future careers in tech, taking opportunities for field trips to inspire the students’ future careers (and choice of college majors / minors).

Thank you to the AWS employees who volunteered to share valuable career insights with the students, who asked questions in small groups of 5–10 students rotating around the room after AWS leader Trevor Moore gave a 10–15 minute intro to Amazon with trivia and fun prizes.

AWS employees Nelson González, Christina Zigliotto, and Jose Mora speaking with CCPA high school seniors.

AWS employees Leticia Ambriz and Juan Morales speaking with CCPA high school seniors.

AWS employees Dawit Bereket and Brian Hammons speaking with CCPA high school seniors.

AWS employees Trevor Moore and Marlene Tuzar speaking with CCPA high school seniors.

AWS employees Gabe Pinar and Mae Reyes speaking with CCPA high school seniors.

Twitch employee Ashley Clark (and native Oakland resident!) joined by videoconference to talk about her career in technical program management with CCPA high school seniors.

Last school year, Girl Geek X volunteers helped CCPA staff in Oakland prepare for school reopening in the pandemic, shared career insights for 11th and 12th graders in the school, gave feedback on senior capstone project presentations, and hosted a Teacher Appreciation luncheon with goodie bags for educators.

This year, Girl Geek X added FIELD TRIPS to the program to inspire future careers in tech! Field trips allow students to experience a variety of workplaces and gain invaluable insight on real-world job titles, professional skills, and modern workplaces.

• Want to volunteer / host a future field trip? Let us know!
• Signup to volunteer at CCPA school in Oakland on December 14, 2022!

Logistics and Playbook for Future Field Trips

Many companies have free and/or catered lunch at the workplace that field trips can take advantage of for “lunch and learn” field trips:

• Company speakers hail from a broad representation of departments / teams (from data to accounting, from engineer to marketing, from project manager to support engineer, from sales to design).
• Emphasize both traditional (higher education, vocational school) pathways to career success, in addition to “non-traditional” (coding bootcamps, self-learning with portfolio of work) ways to entering the tech workplace.
• Employee resource groups (ERGs) may be interested in inviting their members to participate as volunteers and role models for the students. Girl Geek X may also source volunteers to join the students for conversation at lunch.

Sample Field Trip Agenda

• 10:00am — Students and educators arrive to office, check-in
• 10:30am — Tour of office & introduction to teams / departments / volunteers roles
• 11:30am — Lunch with volunteers (speed networking with a wide gamut of roles in the company)
• 1:00pm — Workshop(s) on coding, business, workplace skills, or speed networking
• 1:45pm — Distribute company swag
• 2:00pm — Students and educators depart

Transportation

• If the company is located within walking distance to a BART station, teachers can walk with students to Coliseum Station to BART to the field trip by the BART public transportation system.
• If the company is located in Silicon Valley, please provide a charter bus or Lyft/Uber codes for students to carpool.

#CSEdWeek

Did you know mathematician Grace Hopper helped invent the programming language COBOL? Her birthday is December 9 — and why Computer Science Education Week is celebrated each December!