The GHC conference was the biggest tech fair I could ever imagine, and getting to talk to so many women successful in a tech career was a huge inspiration. The first day was very eventful. After dropping off our stuff at the hotel, my roommate and I attended our first presentation of the day, which was an info session on how to write a tech resume. The session was really helpful, especially because the presenters shared plenty of their own experiences. Throughout the conference, I also attended several other presentations, including one on Big Data and its potential usefulness in different industries, and one on cloud security.
The career fair was arguably the most prominent part of the conference. A good portion of companies in the tech world was there (and those whose name you and I can recognize are definitely present). I was pleasantly surprised to find several finance firms there. As a economics (finance) and computer science double major, working as a tech analyst at a finance firm seems like a great way to combine my interests. I spent a good amount of time talking to several of these firms to get a good idea of what the job would be like and the kind of candidates they were looking for. Even though most of the firms were looking for juniors for their internship programs, it was still a very fruitful experience as it taught me what I should work on as a junior and also gave me a better idea of which specific kind of tech jobs I would like.
I would like to express my sincerest gratitude to the Duke CS department, the school of engineering, yahoo! and all who contributed funds for the trip. Also, a big thank you to our wonderful professors who took such good care of us throughout this memorable experience!
