A New Perspective at Grace Hopper
Hi HackHer413 community! I’m Arianna, a senior Biochemistry and Informatics major at UMass Amherst with the goal of working in bioinformatics.
This October, I and a lucky group of 9 other UMass students were sponsored by the UMass College of Information and Computer Sciences (CICS) to attend the 2019 Grace Hopper Celebration in Orlando, Florida. As an informatics major, one with a life science focus at that, I was nervous heading into the conference. I was going to be surrounded by the best and brightest women in tech and felt like I had been given this opportunity by mistake. I’m not a computer science major and most of my classes are non-technical; what could I gain from this conference? Over the course of the week, however, I was encouraged, inspired, and supported by so many great women that my worries were eliminated.
Here’s how my week went:
Day 1 — Wednesday:
My roommate and I began our day by planning out which companies we definitely wanted to see before we headed for the career hall. Stepping in, the sound was almost deafening. Everywhere you looked, there were young women with resumes out, tote bags filled with swag, and smiles plastered on for recruiters. It was overwhelming, especially seeing the huge booths for the big name companies. I had no idea what to do.
My roommate and I decided to take a lap to orient ourselves (and start collecting swag) and before we knew it, a recruiter for Prudential had pulled us in to talk to her, which ended up being the first resume I gave out. Another recruiter noticed I was a biochemistry major and excitedly shared how he had been a biology major-though it was small, it made me feel much more comfortable and I felt ready to head out on my own. We spent the rest of the day in the hall before heading out to an event with Red Ventures and Rewriting the Code (join RTC here!). The sponsored events at Grace Hopper are a great way to get dinner (and free drinks if you’re over 21) and network. I had a great conversation with the Red Ventures team and learned a lot about the company and what they do. We headed home tired and still hungry and ordered dinner to the room with the rest of our group before going to bed.
Day 2 — Thursday
Another day, another career hall crawl. Every time I entered the hall, I swore I found another company that hadn’t been there the day before. Today, I found all the biotech companies and had some great conversations before heading to a talk by the Dean of UMass CICS and past ABIE Award Winner, Dr. Laura Haas. She gave a great talk about computing for the common good which I really enjoyed. I even learned about the amazing research my current professors do, which I had no idea about. Right after, I had an interview. Going in, I knew it was going to be behavioral and technical, so I spent the night before practicing talking about myself and my projects. My biggest worry was the technical interview-all I knew was that it wouldn’t include writing any code, which was a relief but also stressful since I had no idea what to expect. At GHC, there is an interview hall almost as big as the career hall and just as intimidating. After making the long walk there, I was put in a makeshift waiting room. I became friends with some of the women also interviewing and we realized we were going to the PwC event that night, which was comforting since I wouldn’t have to go alone. The recruiters themselves were very friendly and encouraging. I was able to talk to someone in the role I was interviewing for and gained a lot of helpful information. In the behavioral, I was able to talk about my passion for science outreach and supporting women in STEM. My technical consisted of problem-solving questions, a few of which I struggled with, but overall, I was happy I had given it my best shot.
Afterward, I went to the PwC event which had amazing food and even had a Grace Hopper inspired drink. I met up with the women I met at my interview and played corn hole with some new friends. Getting back to the hotel, I collapsed into bed to watch Netflix with my roommate.
Day 3 — Friday (the last day)
I only spent an hour in the career fair today, deciding instead to go to more talks. My favorite of the day was Jessica Naziri, the founder of techsesh.co and an Iranian-American (just like me!). She gave a great talk called “Becoming An Influential Female Leader In Technology” about getting what you want, being confident in yourself and your goals, and supporting other women. After her talk, the group from UMass decided to spend the rest of the day at Epcot and enjoy the food and wine festival.
Final Thoughts
I went into GHC with the goal to learn as much as possible, put myself out there, and enjoy my few days in Orlando. I left feeling like I was capable of anything having discovered new opportunities, met new friends, and joined a community of over 25,000 women in tech. The energy at Grace Hopper is electric and I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to attend!
