Session III – Practical Tools for Managing Your Time

Time goes by so fast, there never seems to be enough of it, yet the pile of things to be done seems to be growing out of the very air itself! Time Management to the rescue.

The session III speaker was Rebecca DeWitt from Lockheed Martin. She outline the struggles we often face, the type of attention different things require, and how to handle “time bandits”.

I found it interesting how she separated the things that require our time into four categories based on two axes:

• Urgent – calling for immediate attention; pressing; critical
• Significant – having meaning, influence, or effect. These things are important to us.

Based on these four categories we should figure out where we need to be spending our time:

• A. Significant Not-Urgent – personal growth, relationship building
• B. Urget Significant – crisis related, pressing problems, deadlines
• C. Urget Not-Significant – interruptions, mail, telephone, meetings
• D. Not-Urgent Not-Significant – time bandits, busy work, junk mail

It seems that a lot of us spend a lot of time in C and D and become stressed out with B while where we really want to be is in A.

Tips to Successful Time Management:

• To avoid poor planning make to-do lists and prioritize them!
• Be aware of important things and have a buffer for crises.
• Plan ahead, don’t wait for the deadline.
• Break up large tasks and do them early before they become critical.
• Learn to say no, or postpone things, even though it’s inherent for us to seek approval and acceptance and thus always say yes.
• Even though we want to give everyone time, we need time to ourselves too so we can do our work. Go work somewhere quiet!
• Technology is instant, that doesn’t mean we have to be too!

Of course, easier said than done, but keep at it. =)

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Session II – The Imposter Panel

One of the most popular talks for everyone at Grace Hopper is always the Imposter Panel. The idea is that often we all feel like imposters whenever we are around really quick, smart people and especially when we are starting something new. We don’t see our previous success and we devalue our capabilities because everyone else around us seems to be perfect. Thus, the imposter syndrome is a sort of mentality that affects many people, in particular women in the technical field.

The five panelists that shared their experiences and advice in regards to the imposter syndrome were Shamsi Iqbal (MSR), Jennifer Chayes (Microsoft), Rachel Petterson (Google) Nancy Amato (Texas A&M), Tanzeem Choudury (Dartmouth).

Here is what they said about dealing with imposteritis so that we can achieve the successes we are capable of:

Put yourself in the right context:

• Don’t compare yourself to the best aspects of the people around you.
• Other people seem to be very confident and arrogant but are not necessarily smarter.
• Recognize when people are stereotyping you and ignore them!
• Life has many ups and downs and pressures and everyone faces these.

Convince yourself of your confidence:

• Ignore the nagging voice that says you can’t do it.
• Psych yourself up. Recall past successes. Think “yes, I can!”
• Convince yourself that you deserve to be there.
• If you act confident, you will be confident.
• However, keep in mind that you can fool some of the people all of the time but all of the people only some of the time.
• Practice the uncomfortable things that you know are good for you. If you’re scared of it, if you don’t think you deserve it… Just do it! It will get easier. =)

You’re not alone:

• Look for support from friends and family.
• Seek colleagues, mentors, and managers who give positive but also critical feedback.
• Having role models is really important. Find mentors and mentor others to help them treat their imposteritis. It will help them and you.
• As a mentor, don’t appear invincible. Share the hardships too, because it will show reality and teach them how to outgrow it.
• Listen to other people about their own imposter syndrome.

Yes, you can!

Personally, I don’t often attribute my successes just to luck. I feel that once I have achieved something, there’s no changing that. However, going to new places, or further into the future, feels like having to start from ground zero and build successes all over again which is a difficult task. Having to prove myself to new people that don’t know anything about me is really scary. That is where the nagging doubts come in. Nevertheless, I have been fortunate to have a lot of support from friends and mentors and the people around me and I am very thankful to all of them. =)

The imposter panel is very inspirational and encouraging, which is why I have attended it for both conferences I’ve been to so far.

Session 2 Panelists

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Grace Hopper 2009 was a great experience! During the two and a half days in Tucson I was able to attend 7.5 sessions and gain valuable insights, talk to the friendly recruiters of many companies, network with very smart women in technology from across the country, and have a lot of fun as well. Personally, the most valuable thing I gained from the conference was inspiration and confidence that, yes, I can succeed in this most exciting realm of technology and the possibilities of what I can do are diverse and endless.

I took a lot of notes during all the sessions I attended so I’ll organize and post those in the coming days. Here’s the first one!

Session I – Career Choices
The official name of the session was “A Wide Career Lens – Recognizing the Options.” It consisted of a moderator (Phyllis Stewart Pires from SAP) and a panel of four: Maria Olson (SAP), JeanAnn Nicols (Intel), Alysia Andrikopoulos (Google), Betty Chan-Bauza (LifeLock).

It is not easy to make tough career choices. However there are some key things to consider about the road you choose to follow:

• One job incorporates many roles. Have flexibility and capitalize on your strengths.
• Know your interests, goals, and core values. Make sure that the company you choose has similar values and will help you attain your goals.
• Use “Decision Cards”. Keep a list of index cards with your core values. Sort them by priority. Go over them every time you need to make a decision. (I thought this was a really useful idea to help in consciously evaluating each possible path in accordance with the values. I have personally found that consulting my core values has made some decisions much clearer.)
• Have motivation and passion for the career you choose.
• In the end trust your intuition and be confident in your choices.

Once you choose a career path there are still many things to keep in mind in order to be successful.

• A career is a journey. You need to break up the journey and be aware that challenges and learning go hand in hand and there are many trade-offs along the way.
• Find a good project that is interesting to you.
• Communication is key. Work with people easy to get along with and have a good manager.
• Don’t forget that delegation is essential in facing daunting tasks.
• Find a mentor. Talk to people who can instill confidence in you.
• Network a lot. Become accustomed to going out of your comfort zone.
• At the end of the day know what you have contributed.
• Above all know your job and do it well. It’s what you’re there for.
• However, don’t be afraid to fail because you learn from that (but be in a place where it’s okay to do so).
• When you do succeed, sometimes you need to toot your own horn in order to get the recognition you deserve and move forward in your career.

Session 1 Panelists

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This is a continuation of Yuki’s notes on “Mastering the Art of the Technical Interview: Hints and Tips for a Successful Interview Experience”.

Some tips I learned from this (very helpful!) session:

• Do your homework on the company. Show that you know what the company is about, and maybe read some recent news articles about what the company is doing today. This applies to talking to career fairs as well–before introducing yourself, have some background about the company.
• Resume clarity. Your resume should be simple, and easy to get through. It should illustrate technologies you’ve used, and experience that you’ve had–whether it’s in class or in industry.
• Use the whiteboard. One of the impressive things that the interviewee did during this mock interview session was to specifically ask to use the whiteboard when asked a difficult question. Using the whiteboard can help you jot down ideas and illustrate your thought process. After all, this is what the interviewer is most interested in!
• Confidence. Be confident when answering questions (or at least, act confident)!
• In team projects, talk about your specific achievements. If you’re asked about a project, such as a team project you did in school, don’t answer with too many “we”’s. Make sure you show your specific contribution to the project.

Also, here are some tips that came in the brochure that they gave us at this talk:

Phone Interviews

• Stand up and smile! This makes your voice project with confidence and authority.
• Speak slowly and enunciate clearly.
• Clear the room. Turn off the stereo and TV.
• Have your resume out. Just in case they ask questions about your resume, the answer is right in front of you.

Career Fairs

• Target your top ten companies
• Bring copies of your resume
• Create a 1-minute commercial. Use this as a way to introduce yourself by demonstrating your knowledge of the company, expressing enthusiasm and interest, and relating your background to the company’s need–all in one minute.

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One of the opening sessions — there were more than 1600 attendees this year!

Some of the banners from past GHCs

There were several companies with booths set up in the foyer, it was nice going to an all women career fair

We went on a hike in Tucson, the mountains were quite different from those in Washington!

There were several cacti, we liked this one in particular.

There was a dance on Thursday night–yep, all women!

I got a chance to reconnect with my friend Yunling from Columbia; we worked together this summer.

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Interviews can be very scary. What do I do when my code doesn’t work? What if I get stuck? Should I ask my interviewer for a hint?… Thursday afternoon,  I decided to go to the Mastering the Art of the Technical Interview: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly session. The room was extremely crowded when I walked in. Some of us even had to sit on the floor.  A panel of industry and academic representatives involved in hiring for technical positions were sitting on stage. This session started off with a mock interview with Lindsey Fowler from Amazon as the interviewee. I found the form a mock interview to be very helpful. It was definitely a self-reflecting learning experience. I laughed when I saw Lindsey did not do so well on her mock interview, only then I realized that I made the exact same mistakes  during  my last interview.

The panelists gave a lot of good advices, here are some of the things I learned:

About Technical Questions:

• Talk Loud. Use the white board.

• When given a technical question, ask for clarifications and make sure you fully understand the problem.

• If you have heard the question before, say so! Ask them to give you another one! (This is a big plus!)

• Think Aloud! Interviewers want to hear your thought process.

• Test your code: use examples to walk through your code, consider boundary cases.

About Behavior Questions:

• When you are asked to talk about a project you have done in the past, make sure you talk about your team, what you have learned, and what you would do differently next time.

• When the interviewer says “Do you have any questions for me?” This is your chance to tell your interviewer that “My code doesn’t work for this case. I should have …” (It shows that you can find your own mistakes)

• Make sure you know the company.  Instead of asking “What do you guys do?”, say “Oh your company does this and this. It sounds very interesting. Can you tell me more about it?”

• Be passionate! Show them you want to work for them!

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UW CSE girls dancing with Alan Eustace (the senior VP of engineering and research at Google)

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Atlanta!

Fun city! According to the video we watched, every day is opening day in Atlanta.

The Anita Borg Institute announced record breaking attendance this year, with attendance up 16% in spite of these challenging economic times. Wow! I see this as a true testament to the value of this conference, and it is really amazing to see so many women in computing interacting and collaborating at the GHC.

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I’m sitting in on the Landing a Job and Succeeding in Industry: Bridging the gap  between in-class learning and job-related skill session at the GHC. The focus is on five different areas students can pursue outside of the classroom in order to stand out to employers: membership and participation in professional groups, competitions, training & certifications, research & teaching assistantships, and internships/professional experience. A recruiter from EA pointed out that she often has over 100 resumes on her desk for something like 12 interview slots, so it’s incredibly beneficial for students to have unique experiences that will set them apart from other applicants.

It’s interesting (and reassuring!)  from an academic advisor perspective to hear a lot of the advice we give to students echoed back from industry reps. I’m glad the message we’re sending is consistent.

A few highlights from the session (in no particular order):

• Companies, like Microsoft, look for student participation in competitions. In their eyes, this demonstrates a problem solving drive outside of the classroom.
• Research and teaching assistantships are work experience. As the EA recruiter said, having an RA and/or TA position on your resume demonstrates smarts. Also, both are good opportunities to connect with faculty and the faculty member’s network.
• Strong communication skills are a must for computer science jobs.
• Network, network, network. Take every opportunity you can to network.!It will set you up for success. You can do this through internships, professional organizations, competitions, and RA & TA-ships. You will even establish a very useful friend-of-a-friend network through these connections. But, as one panelist pointed out, keep in mind there is a difference between networking and stalking. Treat recruiters with the professional courtesy you wish to receive. Constantly calling and emailing potential connections is not a way to endear yourself to them. I have to say, this is true when contacting your advisor, too.
• Internships are an excellent opportunity to apply your theoretical knowledge in a real world setting and to work with the latest technology. Professional experience as a student also gives you the chance to “try out” a job to determine if it’s right for you. It also allows you to see what corporate culture will be a good fit for you in the long run.
• Certifications can be useful in showing companies that you’re up on the latest technology. They may be particularly important to smaller companies with limited resources for training new employees. There are opportunities to pursue certifications via distance learning/online, and to access free software for this.
• Many students had questions about the interview process. How do I calm my nerves? What do I do if I don’t know the answer to the question? The company reps were quick to point out that *everyone* gets nervous before interviews; that’s just part of the deal. Being as prepared as you can and knowing how to calm yourself down is helpful. One panelist gave the example of taking a sip of water to give herself a moment to collect her thoughts. All of the panelists stressed that you should talk out a problem you don’t know how to answer, utilizing a white board or piece of paper, if you can. Of course, if you’re on a phone interview, you should tell your interviewers that you’re working out the problem on paper, so they know what your silence is about.

Overall, the panelists did an excellent job of conveying important themes to the students in attendance. The message throughout the session was that demonstrating a passion and drive for problem-solving, both in and outside of the classroom, will give you a competitive edge in making a successful transition into the working world.

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