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.
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