It’s hard to believe we fit so much into the first day, especially since our flight was delayed so our really didn’t get to the convention until the afternoon.
When we first got there we all registered. We each got our own name badge and a massive bag of free stuff. I had to hurry off and put up my poster. (You can sign up to presentation a poster in the poster session here [link] – highly recommended!) After that we grabbed some food from the “meal hall” (which really only had one restaurant open, but it had pretty decent options – I split a veggie burger with one of the other girls in our group). After eating we walked around a bit to get a feel for the building (it’s huge!) and then decided to stop by our hotel to drop off some of our stuff and take a quick nap. (We had gotten up at 7 after all.)
We headed back to the convention just in time for the career fair, which was awesome. Microsoft, Google, Intel, IBM, Facebook, Twitter – all of the big companies, along with some pretty cool but lesser known companies, were there, set up, trying to recruit us. Talking to the recruiters was super chill – they didn’t drill us on linked lists or anything. Everyone was just happy to be there and talk to each other about how awesome everything is and all of the opportunities we all have, both in their company and in general. And so much free stuff! And free food! (Good food, too, not just cereal bars or anything.)
Poster presentations were from 7:15 to 10, the same time as the career fair. Luckily my sister and I were able to trade off manning the poster while the other explored the fair and grabbed a box dinner. The poster presentations were also very chill – people just walked around and asked about the poster and our project, and we would tell them about it and answer their questions. Everyone was very supportive and excited about everything.
By the time we got back to our hotel we were exhausted and pretty much passed out as soon as our heads hit our pillows.
