This past September I got the opportunity to attend the Grace Hopper 2022 Conference. This was the first time after COVID-19 that the conference had been brought back in person. It was really exciting to meet other people from my program / similar programs and attend this conference together. A lot of us weren’t super sure what the conference would be like and didn’t really know what to expect when we got there.
The first day, a group of the girls and I spent our day off at Universal Studios and it was a great way for all of us to break the ice and get to know each other. We spent some time at night familiarizing ourselves with the hotel and the conference area. The rest of the days were jam-packed with conference events.
There were a couple main parts to the conference: the Expo, workshops, ceremonies, and nightly dinners/meet and greets. What we discovered was that there were a lot of invite only events that companies invited students they wanted to recruit to. Almost all of us had at least one dinner a night to attend! My favourite part was definitely the Expo. The Expo was basically where all the companies set up their booths and you could get swag and talk to employees at the companies you were interested in! What was super impactful was seeing all the different types of companies that were there and learning about the efforts that these companies are doing to improve the DEI within their workplace. Companies were super transparent about the work they’re doing to improve their culture and telling us things you wouldn’t be able to read or find online!
I also really liked mingling with other GHC attendees from other schools whether it be at the Expo in lines, at the ceremonies, or just at the meet and greet social events in the evenings. I got to talk to so many like-minded individuals and learn about their journeys in tech which was super inspiring. I’ve never seen so many women with similar interests and stories in one room together. It was truly a once in a lifetime experience and I hope to go again in the future to reconnect with some of the friends I made and make new ones!
- 2B Computational Math Student