Sadness.. It's my last session at my first GHC!
The presenter founded a company called Rubicon in 1999. It's a
high-tech consulting firm that has big-name clients such as Logitech.
Innovation is critical! She said that we should consider ourselves as
innovators, which is interesting to think about. I had never thought
of myself as an innovator before. I suppose I could look at our work
with WiCS as innovation!
The speaker brought up an interesting story about the CEO of FedEx,
Fred Smith. He wrote an undergrad paper about his applied idea from
telecommunications and banking industries to transportation He got a
C on it! His classmates and professor did not like his idea at all.
This is so inspiring to me since I have received less-than-stellar
grades on essays in my undergraduate study, and that can be so
discouraging. It's nice to realize that even some of the most
successful people in industry have not always done as well as they
would like!
She told us another story about the inventor of Post-It notes, Art
Fry. As a college student, I can attest that Post-It notes are pretty
much the best invention ever. :)
One of Apple's inventions, the first mouse for a Macintosh, was a
"reinvented" invention that was originally debuted in 1968. Twenty
years later, it became a successful Apple product.
Some innovation lessons:
-Build on existing concepts.
-Do more elegant solutions.
-Serve the new demand.
-Serve exising customers with more.
Five part framework for innovation:
-Map it -> compare to competitors and benchmarks
-Listen and knit -> research methodology
-Seek out new minds -> find other good thinkers, be curious, and ask questions
-Seek the wand -> ask powerful questions, find solutions for problems
-Plot out options -> develop alternative scenarios, work on scenarios
with industry leaders
This was a very interesting, thought-provoking session. What a great
way to conclude GHC!
Monday, October 22, 2007
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Pictures from GHC
Make sure to check out my GHC photos! Click the link on the right-hand side of the page! :)
Welcome Session - Saturday
I'm pretty sad that today is the last day of GHC! :( Like I said in my last post, it has been a wonderful experience for me, and I can't wait to take a wealth of information back to my university. Hopefully I will be able to attend GHC next year (October 1-4 in Keystone, Colorado!) and look back at our WiCS group and be proud of all of the changes we've made. It remains to be seen!
It seems that there will be an additional focus on electrical engineering next year! That's exciting for the students and professionals who are involved in that area of study.
Today I am attending one session - "Innovation Strategies: Finding the Big Idea." This morning, there was a panel of the leaders of the workshops. They were discussing their sessions and why each might be interesting to the attendees of GHC.
I'm looking forward to attending the first panel today, but I am bummed that I have to pack up and go back to my grandma's house before we fly back to Indianapolis on Sunday morning.
Brit McCullar
Official GHC 2007 Blogger
You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum. You can find me at britghc2007.blogspot.com.
It seems that there will be an additional focus on electrical engineering next year! That's exciting for the students and professionals who are involved in that area of study.
Today I am attending one session - "Innovation Strategies: Finding the Big Idea." This morning, there was a panel of the leaders of the workshops. They were discussing their sessions and why each might be interesting to the attendees of GHC.
I'm looking forward to attending the first panel today, but I am bummed that I have to pack up and go back to my grandma's house before we fly back to Indianapolis on Sunday morning.
Brit McCullar
Official GHC 2007 Blogger
You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum. You can find me at britghc2007.blogspot.com.
I <3 GHC
I honestly cannot describe how wonderful this GHC experience has been for me. I always imagined that it would be a lot of fun, but I never could've expected the impact it would have on my life. I feel I have changed so much in three days!
When I arrived at Grace Hopper, I was a college junior who was extremely unsure of her future. I often questioned myself: is CS the right major for me? Although I love it and consider it my passion, could I really succeed with it? I've become a believer. I've met so many inspiring women who have showed me all of the opportunities that await me as my career as a computer scientist progresses. I've pretty much decided that I want to attend graduate school because I want to do research that might change the world. I want to be one of those women who is on stage at Grace Hopper in 30 or 40 years because she's made a significant impact. I want to follow in the footsteps of the pioneers who have paved the way for me to succeed.
I really hope to make attending GHC an annual event because it was so refreshing and rejuvenating. It makes me want to go back to DePauw and work harder than I've ever worked in my life, because I finally have faith in myself. I cannot describe in words how wonderful it feels to have people tell you personally that you will succeed, that you should shoot for the stars, and that they believe in you.
I would just like to thank everyone who made this experience possible for me and everyone who believes in me and other students like me. It's people like you who make a huge difference!
Now, for a little less sappiness (is that word?)...
Tonight was the Platinum Sponsors Night at Universal Studios CityWalk! What a fun event! I met some new friends on the bus, and we ran all over that place like madwomen, trying to get all of the cool goodies provided by the platinum sponsors. I got some AWESOME stuff. I really love my Google and Sun Microsystems shirts, along with my Sun and Juniper backpacks. I also have more pens than I could ever imagine! Here are some pictures from the evening:
My final blogging sessions are tomorrow!
Brit McCullar
Official GHC 2007 Blogger
You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum. You can find me at britghc2007.blogspot.com.
When I arrived at Grace Hopper, I was a college junior who was extremely unsure of her future. I often questioned myself: is CS the right major for me? Although I love it and consider it my passion, could I really succeed with it? I've become a believer. I've met so many inspiring women who have showed me all of the opportunities that await me as my career as a computer scientist progresses. I've pretty much decided that I want to attend graduate school because I want to do research that might change the world. I want to be one of those women who is on stage at Grace Hopper in 30 or 40 years because she's made a significant impact. I want to follow in the footsteps of the pioneers who have paved the way for me to succeed.
I really hope to make attending GHC an annual event because it was so refreshing and rejuvenating. It makes me want to go back to DePauw and work harder than I've ever worked in my life, because I finally have faith in myself. I cannot describe in words how wonderful it feels to have people tell you personally that you will succeed, that you should shoot for the stars, and that they believe in you.
I would just like to thank everyone who made this experience possible for me and everyone who believes in me and other students like me. It's people like you who make a huge difference!
Now, for a little less sappiness (is that word?)...
Tonight was the Platinum Sponsors Night at Universal Studios CityWalk! What a fun event! I met some new friends on the bus, and we ran all over that place like madwomen, trying to get all of the cool goodies provided by the platinum sponsors. I got some AWESOME stuff. I really love my Google and Sun Microsystems shirts, along with my Sun and Juniper backpacks. I also have more pens than I could ever imagine! Here are some pictures from the evening:
My final blogging sessions are tomorrow!
Brit McCullar
Official GHC 2007 Blogger
You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum. You can find me at britghc2007.blogspot.com.
Friday, October 19, 2007
Storytelling as Role Modeling: Collecting Oral Histories
One of the projects the CS department at DePauw is working on is collecting oral histories of women in CS who have graduated from our university, in an attempt to inspire the women currently attending DPU.
According to one of the presenters, this is a participatory workshop! Hmm... :)
Here's a new bit of information for me: SIGSCE is an ACM special interest group about computer science education! I was not aware of this before, but it's good to know!
CEOHP (Computer Educators Oral Histories Project) - the vision of this group is to become part of the historical record and be a resource for the future. People have the chance to be mentored by someone right above them in the scheme of things; for me, it would be a graduate student! CEOHP (see-ope) has conducted 20 (more or less) interviews, with 14 of them being available to the public at ceohp.org.
According to the presenter, no one is too young or too old to be a mentor. I'm hoping I might be able to be a mentor to a freshman or sophomore at DePauw!
We got some materials about oral histories that I hope to be able to use at DePauw. I think it will be a very interesting project for us to complete.
Brit McCullar
Official GHC 2007 Blogger
You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum. You can find me at britghc2007.blogspot.com.
According to one of the presenters, this is a participatory workshop! Hmm... :)
Here's a new bit of information for me: SIGSCE is an ACM special interest group about computer science education! I was not aware of this before, but it's good to know!
CEOHP (Computer Educators Oral Histories Project) - the vision of this group is to become part of the historical record and be a resource for the future. People have the chance to be mentored by someone right above them in the scheme of things; for me, it would be a graduate student! CEOHP (see-ope) has conducted 20 (more or less) interviews, with 14 of them being available to the public at ceohp.org.
According to the presenter, no one is too young or too old to be a mentor. I'm hoping I might be able to be a mentor to a freshman or sophomore at DePauw!
We got some materials about oral histories that I hope to be able to use at DePauw. I think it will be a very interesting project for us to complete.
Brit McCullar
Official GHC 2007 Blogger
You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum. You can find me at britghc2007.blogspot.com.
The 2007 Anita Borg Award for Technical Leadership Winner: Mary Jane Irwin
I am here listening to a talk by Mary Jane Irwin, the 2007 Anita Borg Technical Leadership Award winner. She is from Penn State and is discussing "The Multicore Revolution: Challenges and Opportunities." I believe this will be a very good learning experience.
In 1965, Gordon Moore (of Intel) predicted that the number of transistors that can be integrated on a single chip would double about every two years. I had never heard of this law before, but I find it to be very fascinating. She discussed the technology scaling road map by ITRS and 45 nanometer transistors. Thirty million of them can fit on the head of a pin! She also mentioned that processor clock rates have been doubling about every two years. This accounts for the improvements of computers ever few years - this is why we are always buying new ones!
Between 2000 and 2005, chip power has increased 1.6 times. This means new ways have to be discovered to cool chips because the heat flux increases two times. I must admit that a lot of this information is waaaaaaaaay over my head, but I'm still very interested. I've never really learned much about hardware and statistics such as the ones I've mentioned.
A lot of work is going to have be put into this area of research. Product cost pressures demands that chips fit into a limited power budget (around 100 watts/centimeter squared, I believe). Battery life for mobile devices is also impacted. Everyone has to deal with that problem! The cost of powering and cooling servers is also majorly affected. Since it seems everything in the world revolves around money and cost, this is a BIG issue. Google created a solution, however - they have a cold river and cheap power! Intel's shipment of a dual-core processor is a step into the multicore future.
I would like to take an aside and say how amazingly smart this speaker is! I don't think I could ever imagine myself being able to stand in front of a large audience and explain such in-depth, complicated matter. Well, at least it seems very complicated to me! I am in awe of these women who are so deeply rooted in engineering!
Back to the details.. Apparently Intel has a prototype of an 80-core chip which was presented in 2006. Eighty cores? Wow! It's amazing to see how much technology has changed in the last 60-70 years. I can only imagine how much it will change in my lifetime!
I would definitely encourage anyone who is fascinated by this area of study to visit the GHC Wiki and see if the presenter posted her notes. I'm not sure if she did or not, but it's worth finding out!
Brit McCullar
Official GHC 2007 Blogger
You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum. You can find me at britghc2007.blogspot.com.
In 1965, Gordon Moore (of Intel) predicted that the number of transistors that can be integrated on a single chip would double about every two years. I had never heard of this law before, but I find it to be very fascinating. She discussed the technology scaling road map by ITRS and 45 nanometer transistors. Thirty million of them can fit on the head of a pin! She also mentioned that processor clock rates have been doubling about every two years. This accounts for the improvements of computers ever few years - this is why we are always buying new ones!
Between 2000 and 2005, chip power has increased 1.6 times. This means new ways have to be discovered to cool chips because the heat flux increases two times. I must admit that a lot of this information is waaaaaaaaay over my head, but I'm still very interested. I've never really learned much about hardware and statistics such as the ones I've mentioned.
A lot of work is going to have be put into this area of research. Product cost pressures demands that chips fit into a limited power budget (around 100 watts/centimeter squared, I believe). Battery life for mobile devices is also impacted. Everyone has to deal with that problem! The cost of powering and cooling servers is also majorly affected. Since it seems everything in the world revolves around money and cost, this is a BIG issue. Google created a solution, however - they have a cold river and cheap power! Intel's shipment of a dual-core processor is a step into the multicore future.
I would like to take an aside and say how amazingly smart this speaker is! I don't think I could ever imagine myself being able to stand in front of a large audience and explain such in-depth, complicated matter. Well, at least it seems very complicated to me! I am in awe of these women who are so deeply rooted in engineering!
Back to the details.. Apparently Intel has a prototype of an 80-core chip which was presented in 2006. Eighty cores? Wow! It's amazing to see how much technology has changed in the last 60-70 years. I can only imagine how much it will change in my lifetime!
I would definitely encourage anyone who is fascinated by this area of study to visit the GHC Wiki and see if the presenter posted her notes. I'm not sure if she did or not, but it's worth finding out!
Brit McCullar
Official GHC 2007 Blogger
You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum. You can find me at britghc2007.blogspot.com.
"Learning by Doing": Using Internships to Discover Where You Belong
I had the opportunity to do my first internship this summer. It was a good experience because I figured out something very important about myself - I do NOT want to work in a cubicle! Not that there is anything wrong with that: it is just not the career for me. During these last two days, I think I've discovered what I really want to do: be a researcher and work in academia. We'll see where life takes me!
So, here I am, at Friday's Session 3, which is a presentation about internships. I think this is a great resource for any student!
The presenters introduced themselves and spoke about their internship histories. A few of the panelists had the same kind of internship experiences as me: they discovered what they did not want to do for the rest of their lives. I think it's really great to figure that out, and I'm glad I did.
Wendy Carmody, the program manager of HP University Relations, gave a lot of good advice about internships, including:
-It is important to arrive ready to work hard because the summer is short!
-Don't always expect to do an big, innovative, creative project.
-Try to get a lot out of the opportunity.
-Don't be afraid to speak up if you have a problem.
-Demonstrate leadership qualities.
The panelists took questions from the audience. One really intrigued me: imposter syndrome. I totally experienced that when I started at my internship; I was always thinking I wasn't good enough to do the internship. I still experience this feelings from time to time when something good happens. It's nice to see that others experience these feelings as well.
Brit McCullar
Official GHC 2007 Blogger
You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum. You can find me at britghc2007.blogspot.com.
So, here I am, at Friday's Session 3, which is a presentation about internships. I think this is a great resource for any student!
The presenters introduced themselves and spoke about their internship histories. A few of the panelists had the same kind of internship experiences as me: they discovered what they did not want to do for the rest of their lives. I think it's really great to figure that out, and I'm glad I did.
Wendy Carmody, the program manager of HP University Relations, gave a lot of good advice about internships, including:
-It is important to arrive ready to work hard because the summer is short!
-Don't always expect to do an big, innovative, creative project.
-Try to get a lot out of the opportunity.
-Don't be afraid to speak up if you have a problem.
-Demonstrate leadership qualities.
The panelists took questions from the audience. One really intrigued me: imposter syndrome. I totally experienced that when I started at my internship; I was always thinking I wasn't good enough to do the internship. I still experience this feelings from time to time when something good happens. It's nice to see that others experience these feelings as well.
Brit McCullar
Official GHC 2007 Blogger
You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum. You can find me at britghc2007.blogspot.com.
Welcome Session - Friday
Hello again! It's time to start Day 2 of the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing!
Before I talk about today, I want to mention last night! We had a nice dinner and awards banquet, which recognized the technical leaders attending this conference. Gloria and I received some great news: one of my fellow students, Erin Donahue, was awarded a Pass-It-Along (On? you know what I mean) grant for us to use for our WiCS group at DePauw! We are very excited to win this award because it gives us the opportunity to do so much more than we could've before.
Enough about last night..
At this morning's welcome session, we were given some general announcements, followed by a video preview of the Keystone Resort outside of Denver, Colorado, which is the location for the 2008 GHC! I have never been west of St. Louis before, so I am very much hoping that I will be able to attend next year's GHC. The resort looks fabulous; it's in the mountains and it has a very cozy look to it. We'll see what happens! I've really enjoyed my first conference thus far, so I'm hoping I can make attending GHC a tradition! Next year's theme is "Building a Better World," which should be very interesting!
This morning's keynote speaker was Maria Klawe, who is the president of Harvey Mudd College. I was fortunate enough to hear her speak during the awards banquet at Richard Tapia. The title of her talk was "Best Time Ever for Women in Computing." I agreed with her when she said that it is really great to be at a place where I don't have to be afraid to say, "I love AI," or "I love HCI." It's a pretty good feeling to be able to let out my inner nerdiness! :) So, why is it the best time ever to be a woman in computing? According to Klawe, industry and academia are beginning to realize that women have a lot of talent and that it's important to have more of them! Also, there are better CS courses available and CS is attracting a broader range of interests. Another thing I really love about computing is the fact that computing can change the world - anyone can see the role of computers in areas such as healthcare.
Klawe also discussed why the numbers of undergrads in CS are decreasing. Some reasons include the myth about IT jobs disappearing, the image of computing jobs (being a "code monkey'), and the perception that CS classes are only about programming. I've encountered these issue in my daily life! She also explained how important outreach is to attract girls to CS before they even start college. We're hoping to do this during our high school day.
Overall, this welcome session was very fun and informative and I'm looking forward to my other sessions today! I'm especially looking forward to attend tonight's Platinum Sponsor Night! :)
Brit McCullar
Official GHC 2007 Blogger
You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum. You can find me at britghc2007.blogspot.com.
Before I talk about today, I want to mention last night! We had a nice dinner and awards banquet, which recognized the technical leaders attending this conference. Gloria and I received some great news: one of my fellow students, Erin Donahue, was awarded a Pass-It-Along (On? you know what I mean) grant for us to use for our WiCS group at DePauw! We are very excited to win this award because it gives us the opportunity to do so much more than we could've before.
Enough about last night..
At this morning's welcome session, we were given some general announcements, followed by a video preview of the Keystone Resort outside of Denver, Colorado, which is the location for the 2008 GHC! I have never been west of St. Louis before, so I am very much hoping that I will be able to attend next year's GHC. The resort looks fabulous; it's in the mountains and it has a very cozy look to it. We'll see what happens! I've really enjoyed my first conference thus far, so I'm hoping I can make attending GHC a tradition! Next year's theme is "Building a Better World," which should be very interesting!
This morning's keynote speaker was Maria Klawe, who is the president of Harvey Mudd College. I was fortunate enough to hear her speak during the awards banquet at Richard Tapia. The title of her talk was "Best Time Ever for Women in Computing." I agreed with her when she said that it is really great to be at a place where I don't have to be afraid to say, "I love AI," or "I love HCI." It's a pretty good feeling to be able to let out my inner nerdiness! :) So, why is it the best time ever to be a woman in computing? According to Klawe, industry and academia are beginning to realize that women have a lot of talent and that it's important to have more of them! Also, there are better CS courses available and CS is attracting a broader range of interests. Another thing I really love about computing is the fact that computing can change the world - anyone can see the role of computers in areas such as healthcare.
Klawe also discussed why the numbers of undergrads in CS are decreasing. Some reasons include the myth about IT jobs disappearing, the image of computing jobs (being a "code monkey'), and the perception that CS classes are only about programming. I've encountered these issue in my daily life! She also explained how important outreach is to attract girls to CS before they even start college. We're hoping to do this during our high school day.
Overall, this welcome session was very fun and informative and I'm looking forward to my other sessions today! I'm especially looking forward to attend tonight's Platinum Sponsor Night! :)
Brit McCullar
Official GHC 2007 Blogger
You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum. You can find me at britghc2007.blogspot.com.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Challenges Faced When Forming a New "Women in Computing" Group
Although the WICS group at DePauw has existed for some time, our group did not provide the kind of support our majors and minors needed. I decided we needed a change! So, we obtained the designation of a recognized organization by DePauw's student government. Therefore, we are very much akin to a new 'Women in Computing' group! I was excited to see a session about this because it is difficult to start a group. Since I am the chair of this new group (and the one who spurred all of this change!), I feel a lot of obligation to improve our group so we can improve the future of female computer scientists at DPU.
Challenges faced when creating a new group:
-What kinds of events should we have? Should we have lunches, meetings, guests speakers, or fun activities?
-How do we convince people to come to our meetings?
-How should we publicize WiCS?
-What is the goal of our group? How do we convey that goal to our members?
-How do we keep participation and membership up?
Some of these questions still haven't been answered. We are still looking for new PR opportunities and creative activities. A few ideas we came with included a hardware workshop, a mentoring program, and a high school preview/roadshow day at DePauw. We're also looking to sustain or improve our numbers. Near the end of the 06-07 school year, we would only have four or five females show up. Fortunately, at our first meeting of the year this year, we had 15-20 students and faculty attend, which was really exciting (considering we do not have large numbers of female majors in the department).
If anyone has any ideas for our WiCS group, please share them in the comments area or e-mail me at brittanymccullar_2009@depauw.edu!
Brit McCullar
Official GHC 2007 Blogger
You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum. You can find me at britghc2007.blogspot.com.
Challenges faced when creating a new group:
-What kinds of events should we have? Should we have lunches, meetings, guests speakers, or fun activities?
-How do we convince people to come to our meetings?
-How should we publicize WiCS?
-What is the goal of our group? How do we convey that goal to our members?
-How do we keep participation and membership up?
Some of these questions still haven't been answered. We are still looking for new PR opportunities and creative activities. A few ideas we came with included a hardware workshop, a mentoring program, and a high school preview/roadshow day at DePauw. We're also looking to sustain or improve our numbers. Near the end of the 06-07 school year, we would only have four or five females show up. Fortunately, at our first meeting of the year this year, we had 15-20 students and faculty attend, which was really exciting (considering we do not have large numbers of female majors in the department).
If anyone has any ideas for our WiCS group, please share them in the comments area or e-mail me at brittanymccullar_2009@depauw.edu!
Brit McCullar
Official GHC 2007 Blogger
You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum. You can find me at britghc2007.blogspot.com.
Pursuing Graduate School and the Computer Science Research Career
Oh, the idea of grad school is a bit scary to me. Where will I apply? Will I be accepted? What should my focus be? Ahh.. all of the unanswered questions!
So, because of all of these questions, I chose to attend a session all about graduate schools. The panelists provided a lot of great insight and information about grad school.
Some reasons why the presenters attended grad school:
-to do research
-to pursue teaching and mentoring
-to have independence
-to work with passionate, intelligent people
-to continually learn new things
I still don't know where I should apply to in a year though... any ideas? :)
Brit McCullar
Official GHC 2007 Blogger
You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum. You can find me at britghc2007.blogspot.com.
So, because of all of these questions, I chose to attend a session all about graduate schools. The panelists provided a lot of great insight and information about grad school.
Some reasons why the presenters attended grad school:
-to do research
-to pursue teaching and mentoring
-to have independence
-to work with passionate, intelligent people
-to continually learn new things
I still don't know where I should apply to in a year though... any ideas? :)
Brit McCullar
Official GHC 2007 Blogger
You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum. You can find me at britghc2007.blogspot.com.
Girl Geeks in High School - Technical Experiences of Future Inventors
After attending this session, I really wish I had had the opportunities the four panelists had when I was in high school! Unfortunately, I did not plan on being a CS major when I was in high school. I was always supposed to be Dr. McCullar (in the medical sense). Hopefully, with any luck, I will still be Dr. McCullar someday! :)
In this informal session, the students (3 of which are still in high school, and 1 is a college freshman) answered prepared questions and questions posed by the audience. I even asked a question: Since we are planning a high school day at DePauw for local girls, what kinds of things would be good to do? What would be interesting? Here are the suggestions I was given:
-Attempt to provide something interesting and hands-on, like robots.
-Let them play around with simple programs and code.
-Make sure everything is interactive!
-Spread the message that it's possible for you to be a computer scientist.
-Help them understand what CS is and the opportunities that are available.
Their suggestions were very helpful, and I'm very much looking forward to having our college day!
The girls also answered questions about laptop usage, internet security, and student perceptions of female computer scientists. That particular question made me think: what really is the perception? A lot of my friends think I fix their computers, but what do my classmates think of me? I honestly think it depends on the situation and the student in question. I am a very take-charge type of person, so when I work on a project with a partner or group, I immediately like to contribute, so I think I have been able to prove myself. Should I have to prove myself because I'm a woman? It's issues like these that make me feel very grateful to be attending GHC.
Brit McCullar
Official GHC 2007 Blogger
You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum. You can find me at britghc2007.blogspot.com.
In this informal session, the students (3 of which are still in high school, and 1 is a college freshman) answered prepared questions and questions posed by the audience. I even asked a question: Since we are planning a high school day at DePauw for local girls, what kinds of things would be good to do? What would be interesting? Here are the suggestions I was given:
-Attempt to provide something interesting and hands-on, like robots.
-Let them play around with simple programs and code.
-Make sure everything is interactive!
-Spread the message that it's possible for you to be a computer scientist.
-Help them understand what CS is and the opportunities that are available.
Their suggestions were very helpful, and I'm very much looking forward to having our college day!
The girls also answered questions about laptop usage, internet security, and student perceptions of female computer scientists. That particular question made me think: what really is the perception? A lot of my friends think I fix their computers, but what do my classmates think of me? I honestly think it depends on the situation and the student in question. I am a very take-charge type of person, so when I work on a project with a partner or group, I immediately like to contribute, so I think I have been able to prove myself. Should I have to prove myself because I'm a woman? It's issues like these that make me feel very grateful to be attending GHC.
Brit McCullar
Official GHC 2007 Blogger
You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum. You can find me at britghc2007.blogspot.com.
Retaining Women CS Majors Using Research-Based Initiatives
Hello again! I just attended a talk given by Maureen Biggers and Joanne McGrath Cohoon called "Retaining Women CS Majors Using Research-Based Initiatives." As I've mentioned before, I'm studying ways to keep women in computer science. At DPU, women are definitely a minority, and I would love to see our numbers rise before I graduate!
The presenters discussed five major ideas:
-routinely facilitating academic success
-promote community
-maintain interest through curriculum
-support students
-monitor outcomes
These ideas were discussed in detail, and I found them to be very intriguing. Certain ideas had never occurred to me before, and I believe many of the potential changes discussed could've impacted my first two years as an undergrad. Some of these ideas include:
-Monitoring student outcomes through certain practices, including minute papers. Minute papers involve having students take a minute at the end of class to write down what the major topic they learned about was, and what major question he or she still has about what was discussed. I believe this could be easily implemented at DPU because we have the convenience of the application DyKnow (for those who don't know, DyKnow is an instructional application developed at DePauw which is like an interactive version of Microsoft Powerpoint, in which students can anonymously submit homework problems, questions, etc to their professor).
-Promoting community through the use of groups such as ACM and WICS. This has been a major goal of mine this year by further developing our WICS group to be more of a fun support system for female majors.
-Maintaining interest through student curriculum by breaking the stereotype of the "code monkey." Some students who take CS1 think that their only career path will lead them to a cubicle where they will spend hours away digging through intensive code. There are so many opportunities out there with CS, and I think it's really important to make that clear to all students.
This was a very helpful and informative session, and I think a lot of the ideas that were given to us could be applicable to many institutions, regardless of size. If you would like more information about this, I took pretty extensive notes, so leave a comment and I will be glad to provide those! :)
In the ties of computing, :)
Brit McCullar
Official GHC 2007 Blogger
You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum. You can find me at britghc2007.blogspot.com.
The presenters discussed five major ideas:
-routinely facilitating academic success
-promote community
-maintain interest through curriculum
-support students
-monitor outcomes
These ideas were discussed in detail, and I found them to be very intriguing. Certain ideas had never occurred to me before, and I believe many of the potential changes discussed could've impacted my first two years as an undergrad. Some of these ideas include:
-Monitoring student outcomes through certain practices, including minute papers. Minute papers involve having students take a minute at the end of class to write down what the major topic they learned about was, and what major question he or she still has about what was discussed. I believe this could be easily implemented at DPU because we have the convenience of the application DyKnow (for those who don't know, DyKnow is an instructional application developed at DePauw which is like an interactive version of Microsoft Powerpoint, in which students can anonymously submit homework problems, questions, etc to their professor).
-Promoting community through the use of groups such as ACM and WICS. This has been a major goal of mine this year by further developing our WICS group to be more of a fun support system for female majors.
-Maintaining interest through student curriculum by breaking the stereotype of the "code monkey." Some students who take CS1 think that their only career path will lead them to a cubicle where they will spend hours away digging through intensive code. There are so many opportunities out there with CS, and I think it's really important to make that clear to all students.
This was a very helpful and informative session, and I think a lot of the ideas that were given to us could be applicable to many institutions, regardless of size. If you would like more information about this, I took pretty extensive notes, so leave a comment and I will be glad to provide those! :)
In the ties of computing, :)
Brit McCullar
Official GHC 2007 Blogger
You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum. You can find me at britghc2007.blogspot.com.
Promising Practices in CS1
During the 07-08 school year, I am working with my advisor, Gloria Townsend, to find ways to attract more students to CS1. As a part of that, I would also like to find ways to improve retention rates from CS1 to CS2. I have just attended a session called "Promising Practices in CS1," which included presentations by faculty from various universities. The presenters spoke about the ways they are trying to improve or create CS courses that will be more interesting to potential majors and non-majors alike.
Some of the ideas included using robots as a way to teach basic CS1 concepts. I thought this idea was so cool! The robots are simple by robotics standards, but they also include pretty interesting parts, such as LED lights, IR sensors, and Bluetooth technology to allow students to program the robot in such a way that it can perform simple tasks, such as turning right if there is an obstacle to the left. At DePauw, we are looking at the possibility of having a road show or high school day. The use of robots has piqued our interests, and now I'm very much looking forward to pursuing this!
Another idea was using 3D graphics to teach CS1 concepts using an application called Alice. It allows students to use a "drag-and-drop" editor to create code to work with 3D graphics. The editor prevents syntax errors, which is a great idea! Syntax errors can be such a deterrent to students (trust me - been there, done that!). I believe that it is important for students to learn the concepts and then learn the bigger details, including syntax errors. There is a later version of Alice, Alice 3.0, which allows for the use of Eclipse to edit code. This application seems like a really interesting way for students to really get involved in computer science and realize how cool CS is!
I'm really looking forward to pursuing this ideas for use at DePauw or for use at our WICS-sponsored high school day or road show! It's really remarkable to see how CS can be altered to improve the amount of student interest and student retention. I hope to see CS classes of the future use more of these techniques.
Brit McCullar
Official GHC 2007 Blogger
You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum. You can find me at britghc2007.blogspot.com.
Some of the ideas included using robots as a way to teach basic CS1 concepts. I thought this idea was so cool! The robots are simple by robotics standards, but they also include pretty interesting parts, such as LED lights, IR sensors, and Bluetooth technology to allow students to program the robot in such a way that it can perform simple tasks, such as turning right if there is an obstacle to the left. At DePauw, we are looking at the possibility of having a road show or high school day. The use of robots has piqued our interests, and now I'm very much looking forward to pursuing this!
Another idea was using 3D graphics to teach CS1 concepts using an application called Alice. It allows students to use a "drag-and-drop" editor to create code to work with 3D graphics. The editor prevents syntax errors, which is a great idea! Syntax errors can be such a deterrent to students (trust me - been there, done that!). I believe that it is important for students to learn the concepts and then learn the bigger details, including syntax errors. There is a later version of Alice, Alice 3.0, which allows for the use of Eclipse to edit code. This application seems like a really interesting way for students to really get involved in computer science and realize how cool CS is!
I'm really looking forward to pursuing this ideas for use at DePauw or for use at our WICS-sponsored high school day or road show! It's really remarkable to see how CS can be altered to improve the amount of student interest and student retention. I hope to see CS classes of the future use more of these techniques.
Brit McCullar
Official GHC 2007 Blogger
You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum. You can find me at britghc2007.blogspot.com.
Richard Tapia/Bridge Day
Hello everyone! I've spent the last two days having a really amazing time in Orlando! On Tuesday, I was able to attend the second day of the Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing. I learned a lot of helpful, interesting things, especially at a panel about improving CS retention rates. We discussed a lot great ideas that I plan to take back to DePauw, including ways to break the standard CS stereotype at DPU (that CS is either a typical high school computing class involving word processing or that CS majors are learning how to fix computers!) and the idea to make CS "sexy" again. By "sexy," we mean interesting, fascinating, and applicable to the real world. I feel it's very important to show potential students and majors how the things they learn in class are used in business and industry. Thankfully, I feel that my CS1 professor, Gloria Townsend, definitely tried to stress this point to our class as much as possible. I also heard some other great speakers at Richard Tapia, including the president of Harvey Mudd College, Maria Klawe. Also, after speaking to Ph.D. students and other leaders in academia, I do plan on going to grad school after I graduate in May 2009! Yes, I have been that inspired! :)
Yesterday, I attended Bridge Day activities at Disney World. We were given a technical tour of Epcot, which was fascinating. Their use of IR technologies was intriguing. They have a product now called "Pal Mickey," which is a Mickey Mouse stuffed animal which has an IR sensor in its nose; the toy gives all kinds of information about the park, including ride wait times, where characters are appearing, the data and time, and all kinds of other things. It's a ingenious way to help families use their time wisely while at Disney. We also were given a tour of the Magic Kingdom. We also attended a session about Disney internship possibilities. It was a rather fun day, and thankfully, I am not sunburnt! :)
Posts are coming soon about the first day at Grace Hopper!
Until next time,
Brit
Yesterday, I attended Bridge Day activities at Disney World. We were given a technical tour of Epcot, which was fascinating. Their use of IR technologies was intriguing. They have a product now called "Pal Mickey," which is a Mickey Mouse stuffed animal which has an IR sensor in its nose; the toy gives all kinds of information about the park, including ride wait times, where characters are appearing, the data and time, and all kinds of other things. It's a ingenious way to help families use their time wisely while at Disney. We also were given a tour of the Magic Kingdom. We also attended a session about Disney internship possibilities. It was a rather fun day, and thankfully, I am not sunburnt! :)
Posts are coming soon about the first day at Grace Hopper!
Until next time,
Brit
Monday, October 15, 2007
I'm here!
The first picture with my new camera! :)
Good news: on Sunday, I got a new digital camera! It's a Sony CyberShot, so now I have a small, nice camera to use to take pictures at GHC! I'm really excited to make this blog as interesting as possible, including using pictures and video to spice it up.
I check into the Disney Hilton tomorrow night for Bridge Day on Wednesday! :)
Until next time,
Brit
Thursday, October 11, 2007
The countdown is on! :)
Hello everyone!
I am flying out from Indianapolis to Orlando tomorrow night at 8pm. I am so excited about spending my Fall Break in Florida! For the first few days of my trip, I will be spending time with my grandparents, uncles, aunt, and cousins, who all live in and around Orlando. Then, on Tuesday, my Grace Hopper experience begins! :)
Here is my blogging schedule for the celebration:
Thursday, October 18th:
Session 3 -> 1:55pm - 2:55pm
*Retaining Women CS Majors Using Research-Based Initiatives
Session 6 -> 5:30pm - 6:30pm
*Challenges faced when forming a new “Women in Computing” group
Friday, October 19th:
Session 3 -> 1:40pm - 2:40pm
*Learning by Doing: Using Internships to Discover Where You Belong
Session 4 -> 2:50pm - 3:50pm
*The 2007 Anita Borg Award for Technical Leadership Winner
Session 5 -> 4:00pm - 5:00pm
*Storytelling as Role Modeling: Collecting Oral Histories
Saturday, October 20th:
Session 1 -> 10:00am - 11:00am
*Innovation Strategies: Finding the Big Idea
So, look forward to entries about those sessions after I attend them! I'm hoping to post very quickly after each session, but there might be a delay on Friday because I'm blogging about three sessions in a row! Most of these sessions are going to be really helpful to me in my roles of chair of WICS and ITAP (Information Technology Associates Program) intern.
Also, my flight tomorrow night will be my first time flying.. ever! Better a three to four hour flight from Indy to Orlando for my first flight rather than from Indy to (Houston?) to El Salvador for my winter term (January '08) trip, which is about 10 hours!
More blogs to come soon! :)
Brit
I am flying out from Indianapolis to Orlando tomorrow night at 8pm. I am so excited about spending my Fall Break in Florida! For the first few days of my trip, I will be spending time with my grandparents, uncles, aunt, and cousins, who all live in and around Orlando. Then, on Tuesday, my Grace Hopper experience begins! :)
Here is my blogging schedule for the celebration:
Thursday, October 18th:
Session 3 -> 1:55pm - 2:55pm
*Retaining Women CS Majors Using Research-Based Initiatives
Session 6 -> 5:30pm - 6:30pm
*Challenges faced when forming a new “Women in Computing” group
Friday, October 19th:
Session 3 -> 1:40pm - 2:40pm
*Learning by Doing: Using Internships to Discover Where You Belong
Session 4 -> 2:50pm - 3:50pm
*The 2007 Anita Borg Award for Technical Leadership Winner
Session 5 -> 4:00pm - 5:00pm
*Storytelling as Role Modeling: Collecting Oral Histories
Saturday, October 20th:
Session 1 -> 10:00am - 11:00am
*Innovation Strategies: Finding the Big Idea
So, look forward to entries about those sessions after I attend them! I'm hoping to post very quickly after each session, but there might be a delay on Friday because I'm blogging about three sessions in a row! Most of these sessions are going to be really helpful to me in my roles of chair of WICS and ITAP (Information Technology Associates Program) intern.
Also, my flight tomorrow night will be my first time flying.. ever! Better a three to four hour flight from Indy to Orlando for my first flight rather than from Indy to (Houston?) to El Salvador for my winter term (January '08) trip, which is about 10 hours!
More blogs to come soon! :)
Brit
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