My Grace Hopper Celebration’21 Experience.
What is Grace Hopper Celebration?
For those of you who don’t know, The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing is a series of conferences designed to bring the research and career interests of women in computing to the forefront. It is the world’s largest gathering of women in computing. Diversity in tech is something I am most passionate about and it’s very close to my heart and GHC celebrates people of all gender, race, caste in every way possible and that is one of the many reasons why I just love GHC.
GHC Scholarships provide funds for undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty to attend their three-day Celebration. Scholars who attend GHC gain access to career and academic workshops, networking opportunities, and memories that will last a lifetime.
GHC Application Process:
I have made a video dedicated to the application process and I have covered each and every part of the form please have it a look to make your application stronger.
My experience
This was the first time ever I was attending a conference and that too such a huge one. To be honest, it was so overwhelming for me at the start but then I started to network with other scholars and all of them were so helpful and I believe the best part of this conference was the networking.
So I will start from the very beginning just after I got to know that I have received the scholarship I started getting emails from various companies like RedHat, Amazon, etc where they discussed their company culture and talked about the importance of diversity and I got a chance to talk to people I never thought was possible. One funny thing was all the workshops happened according to US Time Zones because GHC is for people around the world so I remember waking up till 4 am for a workshop and it was worth it!
Each and everyone was so grounded and it honestly gave me a feeling of belongingness and motivated me to do more and more. We played games had 1:1 sessions and whatnot.
Below is a glimpse of one of the Workshops on resume building and how to improve our elevator pitch hosted by Alaina G. Levine.
📌Speaker Sessions
During GHC there are keynote speeches, mentoring sessions, etc and honestly for an under-confident girl who always thought she does not know enough it was life-changing ( I mean it). It made me understand that I made for bigger things in life and with hard work and determination I am capable of achieving anything I want.
📌1:1 Sessions
During GHC we can book 1:1 sessions with people in top tech giants. I got a chance to interact with people from Amazon, Disney, RedHat, Microsoft, Google. The 1:1 sessions have limited seats and slots open and get filled in seconds so if you are attending virtual GHC make sure to be hyperactive and book your slots.
You will get regular mails from AnitaB. Org as to what is the agenda for a particuar day and then you can plan out accordingly.
📌Perks of being a GHC Scholar:
Honestly, the perks of being a GHC Scholar is endless but I will try to list a few of them
1)Network
The network that GHC gives you is not just for one year or two years it’s precious and it’s for life. I got to know so many girls who are doing exceptionally well in the field of tech, I got to know girls who are serving the community and trying everything to help others. I got to learn if you want to achieve something being humble and respectful is the most important factor.
3) Internship/Full-time opportunities
Any good company or tech giant that you can think of from around the world was present at GHC. I got mails from 40+ companies for other Online Assessments and successfully cleared many. I got a chance to interview at Adobe but they were hiring only for US Based locations and hence despite getting an offer I had to leave it. But if you are okay with US Based locations then trust me the opportunities are endless.
2) Gift Cards
Now if I talk about some monetary gift that we got was a gift card that we can convert into Amazon Gift Card, Uber wallet,Flipkart money, ola moneyetc. Now I don’t think it’s right to tell the amount but yeah we got it as a surprise gift from Anita B.Org Organisation.
4) And yes how can we forget the swags:
Who doesn't like swags? I never really imagined that I will get swags from companies like HRT, Jane Street, etc.
Grace Hopper Celebration is not just a three-day conference for me. It’s a feeling and something I just can’t express enough about. While writing this it was like a trip down the memory lane and I wish It was not virtual but I am hoping that everything gets back to normal and maybe we can attend GHC in person in the upcoming years!
If you have any other doubts or suggestions please feel free to join my telegram community and directly ask questions from me there. https://t.me/muskanagarwall ❤️
