Interns of Silicon Valley 2018 (Part 4)
Compiled by Kendrick Umstattd
To recognize and highlight the next generation of future leaders in our industry, Women of Silicon Valley is bringing back “Interns of Silicon Valley”, a series of profiles on interns from across the tech landscape.
With the final days of summer upon us, we’re getting ready to say goodbye to this year’s class of interns. In this fourth and final installment of our 2018 Interns series, you’ll meet four new interns and learn about how they’ve confronted biases, imposter syndrome, and self-doubt to get to where they are today.
Varsha Ramakrishnan | University of California, Berkeley
Internship: Software Engineering Intern, Google
Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass was Varsha’s first video game. When she was young, she played it so much that she decided she wanted to make her own, so she searched “How to make video games” online. From there, she found Java programming tutorials and went on to distribute homemade Java Graphics games she had built.
Now as an undergraduate student, she is studying computer graphics and artificial intelligence as an Electrical Engineering and Computer Science major. Although she has had success early in her career, interning at both eBay and Google, Varsha did not get where she is without overcoming obstacles. Her parents discouraged her from choosing to study computer science, partly because they felt it was not a typical path for women. This input made Varsha initially feel like she should not join the robotics team or learn to code.
As before, when she wanted to learn to make video games, the internet was her savior. By searching online, she was able to find female role models in computer science and draw inspiration from them. Now that she gets to work alongside some of these women, she has been surprised by how diverse the technology workforce is. She believes diversity has improved a great deal and looks forward to making an impact on that trend in the future.
“I think the biggest challenge I’ve faced is bias. I didn’t really look like most kids in my computer science class in high school; no one in my family studied engineering; and my parents were strongly against me choosing computer science, partly because they felt it wasn’t a suitable career choice for women.
Once again, just as the internet taught me to code, the internet was my savior. I looked up women in computer science and was inspired. I realized that it didn’t matter whether or not the world was out to get me. The real problem was just me holding myself back, and I’d like to think I’ve held on to that drive since then.”
Recommendations: Books, Anathem and The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
Alex Niousha Jafari | Northeastern University
Internship: Developer Relations Intern, Google
Growing up in Iran, Niousha dreamt of being an inventor. She would break things and try to rebuild them, but without internet access, she couldn’t always research how to fix them. As a result, many things remained broken. In high school, with access to the web, a whole new world opened up to her. After taking an introductory programming class, both Niousha and her teacher saw her natural coding abilities. This led her to take another computer science class during her free period her senior year.
The enjoyment she derived from building things carried Niousha into pursuing computer science in college. For the first time, though, she wasn’t the top student: having only received her first computer at the age of nine, she felt behind her peers. Instead of discouraging her, this struggle only made building her understanding of programming more satisfying. Maintaining this focus, she worked her way up to the role of teaching assistant. She credits hard work, the support of a great community, and great interest in the subject matter as the reasons she was able to achieve success.
“Working in tech is almost nothing like the stereotypes I heard about. I’ve never worked in a cubicle, the people on my team are great communicators, and the engineers I work with are very helpful.”
Recommendation: Movie: The Separation, directed by Asghar Farhadi
Himani Arora | North Carolina State University
Internship: Software Engineering Intern, Google
Himani first became interested in technology because she enjoyed the satisfaction of solving logical problems from scratch. For her undergraduate degree, motivated by this aptitude, Himani focused on Electronics and Instrumentation, leading her to her first job as a Hardware Engineer.
Later, when her work called for her to also work on software, she struggled initially. Linked list and tree problems seemed daunting. Himani was unwilling to give up: she not only wanted to understand software engineering, she wanted to excel at it. She is still learning every day and is proud of the progress that she has made so far.
“My undergraduate degree was in Electronics and Instrumentation, and my first job was as a hardware engineer. I remember struggling with software problems in the beginning, but I stayed patient and kept working hard, because I not only wanted to move to software engineering, but I also wanted to be really good at it.
I am still learning and struggling, but I am far ahead of where was when I started. As they say, ‘Nothing worth having comes easy.’ So, I believe that staying persistent and working hard can work wonders.”
Lauren Clark | UC Santa Barbara
Internship: Channels BOLD (Build Opportunities for Leadership & Development) Intern, Google
When Lauren started her internship as a Channels BOLD intern at Google, she initially struggled navigating the ambiguity of her project. She was nervous about her work because she didn’t have a full grasp on everything she needed to understand. In her role, she had to consider two different organizations and their respective goals.
Determined to make herself more knowledgeable about Google and her project, Lauren started researching her tasks in order to decide how to tackle them. As she reached out to people with questions, she was encouraged by how supportive everyone was and how much they wanted to see her succeed. She walked away from this experience not only with the necessary information to complete her project, but also with a deeper appreciation for the culture at Google. She saw firsthand that Google takes care of their interns. Even in times when she was uncertain about the next step to take, Lauren was able to reach out to her coworkers, who put in time to make her feel comfortable and to lessen some of the imposter syndrome that affects us all.
“In order to make myself more knowledgeable about Google and my intern project, I researched and utilized all my resources to understand my tasks and how I could tackle them. I reached out to people who helped me clarify the focus of my project. The best part of this process was that everyone I reached out to wanted to help me and see me succeed.”
Recommendation: Book: Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
