I am unlikely to attend (I’ve been before and there are other conferences to go to and the company only pays for so many of them), but I’m (trying to) sponsor some students from my old university to attend. I hope to update this post with the progress of that endeavor.

Timeline:

  • Ack from the head of the department, two professors I trust to get things done, and a University Gift Representative who means well. As far as I know we are still at the “That’s great! We will do some stuff and get back to you” stage.
  • Got coffee with the University Gift Representative in SF. Insisted on sticking to my reimbursement strategy, right or wrong. I still have a deep distrust of the university’s ability to disburse funds in a timely manner, so I’m insisting on handling the funding directly. I am interested in how this will work out.
  • According to my Secret Inside Spy (a friend who is still taking classes), no students know about this yet despite it being two weeks from first contact. But things progress.
  • ~2.5 weeks after first contact, 300+ students have been contacted (and I have the list!)
  • 38 days after first contact, there are at least as many applicants as spaces! 8 more days.
  • 11 June 2015: Yes/No decisions have gone out! 15 applicants, 4 chosen, 1 additional scholarship assigned by discretion
  • 25 June 2015: All 5 students have their conference tickets, housing, and plane flights booked and reimbursed! Now we just have to wait… and keep in contact. :)
    • Reimbursement types used (requested by students): Chase QuickPay, PayPal, snailmail check
    • Total cost: 3370 (out of 5250 maximum for tickets, hotel, and flights) - expected up to 200 additional reimbursements for during-conference expenses. A lot of this saving is thanks to using AirBnB instead of a hotel. The rest of it is cheaper-than-expected flight tickets.
  • 24 October 2015: Some but not all of the students have sent in their conference expenses and write-ups and been reimbursed. I’m composing a wrap-up blog post about the experience.

Takeaways (so far):

  • Reminders are good
  • Coordination takes time and effort!
  • Start earlier, so we don’t have to worry about tickets selling out!
  • Various lessons on how to coordinate the Secret Cabal (funding, potential funding, last-minute stretch funding…)
  • Professor Bauer is awesome. Very, very awesome. :)
  • Having one student who can handle housing is very useful!
  • Spreadsheet for tracking [receipt_submitted, reimbursed, reimbursement_acknowledged] is very useful, works well
  • Spreadsheet for tracking applicants is very useful, works well

Original message (plus or minus typos)

I'm an [X Uni] alumni currently working as a software developer. I would like to sponsor four [X Uni] students to attend the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing 2015 conference (Houston, Oct14-16). Can you please connect me with someone who can help me coordinate this?

Requirements:
1. Identify as female
2. Enrolled full time at [X Uni] during the current semester
3. Taking at least one CS course during the current semester
4. Attend the full day of all 3 days of the conference (Oct 14, 15, 16)
5. After the conference, send me a 500-word writeup of your experiences

Please tell students who are interested to email me at (email) before end of day 10 June 2015 with
1. Name
2. Grad/undergrad, year, current CS courses
2. Under 250 words on why they are interested in attending the conference
3. Please make the email subject message "[X Uni] Grace Hopper"

On 11 June 2015, I will contact all [X Uni] students who have contacted me with a yes/no.

Reimbursement specifics:
Receipts for airfare, hotel, and conference ticket must me emailed to me before I'll reimburse them.
- Hotel, 3 nights (1 room for 4 students). Up to $750 total (i.e $250 per night). AirBnb or other options ok.
- Airfare (up to $300 round trip per student)
- Conference ticket (Early bird student ticket: $300)
- $40 per day per student for misc. expenses (food, train, taxi)

Reimbursement will be within 48 hours of when I get the receipt, and can be directly to the students or through an [X Uni] faculty intermediary. Reimbursement will be via paypal, venmo, squarecash, chase quickpay, or similar.

Please feel free to email me with any questions at (email)

I’ve attended Grace Hopper in:

  • 2009 (Tucson) with IIT thanks to a grant obtained by professor Cynthia Hood. It was really amazing and I learned a lot about how the ‘real world’ of tech is. I met some people with whom I am still in contact. I also participated in the twitter stream of the conference.
  • 2010 (Atlanta) as a Hopper. This was very valuable because I was forced to interact with many people and the notes that I took as a Hopper on sessions became part of people’s experience of the conference. This was also very useful to me because I reconnected with the ThoughtWorks hiring team, whom I’d previously tried to impress at the IIT Career Center fair. I feel like my presence at this conference probably was a factor in helping me get hired (the double interaction as well as the learning opportunities). I also tried to connect with other companies but I wasn’t very good at it. The job fair at GHC is pretty great but also very crowded and it really helps if you’ve done your research beforehand.
  • 2013 (Minneapolis) with ThoughtWorks (helping to work the booth) - I helped write the code problems that they used as pairing exercises at the booth. I still have the t-shirts. Lots of work, relatively little conference-ing but a valuable experience.
  • 2014 (Phoenix) with Braintree/eBay (just attending, no booth). I enjoyed visiting with the large ThoughtWorks booth and seeing so many people that I knew there. I attended pretty much every talk that I could and I learned some interesting technical facts. I was not job-hunting but I did go to all the booths to visit people I knew there, chat with strangers, and pick up the very best swag.
  • 2015 (Houston) with Breadcrumb/Groupon (just attending, visited the booth but did not work at it) I enjoyed renewing old acquaintances and also meeting the IIT students in person. I hope to publish a full writeup later.

Take-aways from GHC 2009-2014 (for me)

  • There are a lot of interesting people ‘like me’ out there and meeting them is really fun!
  • I also learned about some really interesting companies.
  • Lots of exciting / inspirational tech facts
  • GHC is not as technical as some other conferences, but it’s great for networking and university students
  • The Open Source talks/track are my favorite part (most technical, most difficult)
  • Being a Hopper is a really really good idea for networking, even though you don’t get to go to all of the sessions.
  • The LGBT group at GHC is cool
  • It feels really obvious which companies are actively trying to recruit women / have an internal culture that I can get along with, and which aren’t/don’t.
  • Going alone (or at least being willing to split off from the group and hang out with new people and go to the company parties after the event) is really valuable for having fun / meeting people but super-tiring for me.
  • ThoughtWorks is awesome (and has an awesome booth and conference speakers)

The answers to some questions that I was asked:

Hi!

I believe that the PTC major has been discontinued at IIT. I am not sure what it was originally intended for; perhaps for “technical writers” as in an entry to a certain segment of the publishing industry. I used it as a way to take lots of elective classes that could be computer science, and thereby to graduate on time.

As for most valuable on the job… I can’t really tie it back to much at IIT. The most useful thing for me at work is being interested in things and being able to notice my own confusion and automatically react by seeking to learn more, rather than flinching away. Communicating technical ideas is absolutely necessary for working on any kind of team, and it’s great that you have a head start on that skill.

I was not a CS student but I took some CS classes; I remember feeling entirely overwhelmed in several of them and I did drop one of them in part because I was the only woman in it, and situations arising thereof. I did a group project with some acquaintances and felt very impostor-y but at least they were friends of friends and that kept us on a decent footing and I ended up making a good showing.

One thing I have to say is that… industry is better than academia in this regard (in my experience) because you can pick and choose between companies (and teams within companies) much more easily (and with better prior knowledge) than between schools, and there is an HR department, and people have to “be professional” which usually rules out the really worst forms of behavior.

ThoughtWorks has a very excellent junior developer program (and recruits really heavily at Grace Hopper!) and I was very lucky to work for them; I am still on friendly terms with many people there and I am open to working there again someday. You might be interested in a blog by women in tech that I contributed to along with several other ThoughtWorkers during my time there.

Breadcrumb is an acquired startup (acquired by Groupon, which is big in Chicago) and it is exciting to help drive out their product and infrastructure while still having the stability and work-life balance that comes with working for a larger company. I very much respect Braintree. I am mostly familiar with their San Francisco office; I have never been to their Chicago office. You can see my blog post on leaving Braintree here

I recommend the Crucial Conversation book and its sequel for communications halp.

Please feel free to send more questions and/or share the above answers with others. :)

Congratulations! You have been selected!

Please buy your Student ticket immediately and email me the receipt. http://gracehopper.org/attend/ Tickets are $300 until June 22 but may sell out before then. If tickets sell out before you can get one, then… no ticket :/

Please ask me any questions about this that come to mind. Let’s try to not surprise each other!

Here is a reminder about expenses:

Reimbursement specifics: Receipts for airfare, hotel, and conference ticket must me emailed to me before I’ll reimburse them.

  • Hotel, 3 nights (1 room for 4 students). Up to $750 total (i.e $250 per night). AirBnb or other options ok.
  • Airfare (up to $300 round trip per student)
  • Conference ticket (Early bird student ticket: $300)
  • $40 per day per student for misc. expenses (food, train, taxi)

Reimbursement will be within 48 hours of when I get the receipt, and can be directly to the students or through an IIT faculty intermediary. Reimbursement will be via paypal, venmo, squarecash, chase quickpay, or similar.

One of the wonderful things that Grace Hopper has is the “Resume Database” that is made available to all the companies that are attending the conference and trying to hire employees. You can put your resume in the database at http://apps.gracehopper.org/~abi/prod/forms/resume/resume-sub.php?Site=GHC&Year=2015 This is a really great way to connect with companies that are hiring for full time and internships, and to get on their radar for next year or in a few years when you are interested in full time work.

I regret to inform you that you have not been selected. I wish we could send everybody!

Please feel free to send me questions and stay in contact. I am interested in hearing about your academic work and I am willing to answer questions about working as a developer etc.

One of the wonderful things that Grace Hopper has is the “Resume Database” that is made available to all the companies that are attending the conference and trying to hire employees. Even if you don’t attend the conference, you can put your resume in the database at http://apps.gracehopper.org/~abi/prod/forms/resume/resume-sub.php?Site=GHC&Year=2015 This is a really great way to connect with companies that are hiring.

There are many other ways to attend Grace Hopper. Some of them that I know about:

In response to questions on how the winners were selected:

Applications were ranked primarily on the demonstrated realism in approach and concrete grasp of the utility of the conference and the applicant’s implied readiness to use such.

Why is there a fifth person, when the original intent was for four? Because it was a good application although technically did not fit the ‘full time student’ requirements, and the Secret Cabal behind this endeavor had a member willing to finance the additional cost.

Typofixes, questions, factual corrections, and feedback are welcome: please file an issue on github at https://github.com/compwron/compwron.github.io/issues or contact compwron