All photos from GHC are on this web site
www.useventphotos.com
What I would like to talk about regarding Barbara Liskovs talk has to do with one of the questions in the Q and A.
What would you recommend as as a first language?
She answered that there is not a good answer, Python is ok probably the best choice, java and C# is good. But we need another languages.
What would you recommend or can you come up with a good new language?
Here are some impressive numbers on Yahoo!
600 million people come to them from around the world and they serve up 100 billion emails a month as well as 18 billion adds a day.
Here are some key points from Carol on career and life.
-Embrace change
-Stand up for yourself
-BE A LEADER dont wait for a mentor to come along
-Don’t think of your career about a ladder thing about it as a pyramid. (ladders are unstable.)
-Given that you are on average 20 yrs old you have about 50 years to work
-Dont miss out on a family.
-Men are inferior.
I was following her the whole way through her talk having one of those “hallelujah sister” moments until she got to the part about men. I don’t know how all of you feel about this last (semi-joking) statement but it really slapped me in the face and took the moment away. She was joking right?
The best moment of her talk though, and I hope you were there to see it was the BIOTCH WINGS! This I believe is really important. Learn how to defend your ideas. In my opinions part of this is getting to know your team really well. Find out what types of arguments work. Something else I find useful is letting your colleagues know what signals you are upset. (And ladies this is also true in relationships) Do not just subtly act upset specifically say when I do this it means stop and listen for a moment.
What do you use to get people to listen up ?
First I would like to profile the speakers of this session and then discuss the interactive portions.
Mary Czerwinski Microsoft Research
Mary, HCI for the future of computing, etc. Been at microsoft for 15-16yrs and she pulled it together from scratch. Got undergrad masters and phd in psychology. Got into studying the brain and was advised by this great group of people. She took the industry route and never looked back.
Soha Hassoun Tufts University
Soha, MIT “well why not”. Took a break from masters for a few years and worked for a company called digital, the micro processor design group. Most amazing experience. Became part of the EECS department they split and they were 5 people only and shes been building. Tufts CS is #35 now in the ranking after only 7 years. She now builds predictive models for livers. Her daughter synchronize skates. She is no longer married, and happy for it.
Both of these speakers were so wonderful. Because of the interactive portions of this session I got to meet several wonderful people. During the introduction portion I met Pascale Houabche and Kathy from Harris, what a coincidence since we are both from Melbourne Florida! What a wonderful activity.
During the elevator pitch section. I did my elevator speech with Anshu Agrawal. It took us a few tries but we are now all the better for it.
Mary Jean Harrold – BS MS math, secondary, college math teacher, PhD CS, Georgia Tech now.
Mary is a fast speaker but by the end I understand why. She was trying to pack years worth of advise into one session. With her kind and inspiring words I think many girls felt reassured that they are not asking too much of their advisors and of themselves. A lot of people talk to me about their advisor and most times it is just small problems but when I hear something big my advise to them is to change advisors. It was reassuring to hear her say that this is a possible task.
The one thing I remember most from her session is:
“Advisor-advisee relationship are forever. You want an advisor that will do things. After you graduate you want someone on your side. Recommend you for awards later. In general be a continual advisor. Almost every time she has something serious she asks her advisors opinion.”
Nina Bhatti – UC Berkeley BA Mathematics and Computer Science, worked at tektronix inc sw developer 3 yrs. Made her excited to go back to grad school. Now a research scientist at HP labs.
She started with an older professor but she ended up with a younger group. Professional research is different you determine what is a good area business as well as technical reasons.
Besides her very interesting research the two point that she really drove home in this session was the need for funding and the importance of collaboration. Even if you are going into the academic world you will need money. Also no matter where you are coming from you will need to be able to bring people together behind your ideas and this is an important skill to have.
Here are some personal profiles of the wonderful speakers in this session. Get to know them on this blog and then take some time to speak with them on their topics.
Speakers:
Elizabeth Mynatt Ga Tech
Erika Poole Penn State
Jane Prey Microsoft Research
Beth
Industry first then Academic. Researcher by day, toothfairy by night. Professor in Interactive computing, previous research staff member at Xerox PARC, Mom, Wife, Daughter.
My favorite point of Beth’s was that you need to have an “insecurity buddy” there needs to be at least one person in your life that you can go to and say “I’m having one of those days”. I feel that this is one of the most important things being a PhD Student or a student in general. If you don’t have that one person your insecurities seep into your professional life and this is not ok. With this person you should be able to tell them your irrational fears and they can help you through them. Then when the time comes you can do the same for them.
Erika
One month out of graduate school is now teaching. talked about things you shouldnt do in graduate school, she’s done all of them feel free to chat with her later. New professor she is looking for students technologies that are used by families.
The point that Erika made about keeping a list of ALL of your hair brained ideas really spoke to me. With these online communities and blogs you should make a private list maybe a google doc and put in it all of your good and bad ideas. Along with them put some dates. This list you should keep forever and in a few years go back to it and you will see all of these disconnected dots that you can now connect into a coherent idea. We have no idea how smart we are and when we have the global view it changes our perspectives on ideas from the past. Plus you will not remember it if you don’t write it down, so give it a try!
Jane
Academic first then went to industry. “Still deciding what she wants to do when she wants to grow up” this is why she did both research and industry. Mom with grown kids (she beat the whip hard enough and so her three kids are in tech 🙂 ) she’s on a year to year contract with her husband 🙂 and she is also a daughter (sandwich generation).
A view on the welcome speech:
Lori Pollock spoke to us for 15 minutes this morning and her slides were very informative. I’m glad they had something occur 30 minutes before the sessions to get everyone downstairs and ready.
She went over what we should be doing today emphasizing that it is a special day for students so all you undergrad, grads, and post grads out there listen up!
What you should be doing today
–Attend presentations (by students)
–Attend poster session (more by students)
–Listen to advise this afternoon
What’s the difference between the PhD Forum and the New Investigators?
PhD Forum (still working on their phd) and New Investigators (just graduated students research).
This is your chance to see what its like fro a graduate student to present at a forum like this.
LUNCH!!! Special in that there will be tables for special topic areas. Meet other people with common interests.
A summary of the tracks coming up today –
Undergrad track – What is research, how is it different from development, how do i know it is for me, what is the path.
Grad track (2) – 1-2 yr. then senior grad students – Now no one is telling you what to do, now what? Building network how? What’s it take to do great research? How to make Huge impacts. – How do i start my own research program… how do i become a leader… how do i get promoted (important).
Evening – newcomer session, how to maneuver, what should i not miss, how do you plan your time.
Whew that is a long day, I hope to see you all around. Come introduce yourself and lets introduce our pokens!
If you have not yet taken a look at the program addendum you should check it out!
Not only are there changes to sessions and speakers but also the General Lunch Session on Wednesday now has Tables Assigned for Research Interests. I’ve pasted the excerpt below so you can comment here on which table you are most interested in sitting at. I’ve put an * by the tables I am interested in though I have not yet decided where I will end up.
(NEW) Wednesday Main Conference Lunch – Grand Hall East/West (12:00pm-1:00pm)
Meet researchers in your area of interest! We invite you to join any of the following lunch
tables:
Group 1:
• Table 1: Algorithms*
• Table 2: Theory of Computing
• Table 5: Numerical Computing/Computational Math
• Table 6: Bioinformatics/Computational Biology
Group 2
• Table 8: Artificial Intelligence*
• Table 9: Machine Learning*
• Table 10: Natural Language Processing
• Table 12: Robotics*
• Table 13: Computer Vision
Group 3
• Table 16: Cloud Computing
• Table 17: Computer Architecture/Hardware
• Table 20: Distributed Computing/Systems
• Table 21: Ubiquitous Computing
Group 4
• Table 23: Smart phone apps*
Group 5
• Table 24: Database/Information Systems
• Table 25: Data Mining
Group 6
• Table 3: Graphics
• Table 4: HCI*
Group 7
• Table 7: Programming Languages and Compilers
• Table 11: Software Engineering
Group 8
• Table 14: Computer Networks
• Table 15: Wireless Networks and Communications
• Table 19: Security and Privacy
Group 9
• Table 22: Open Source
• Table 18: Multimedia processing/web service
Hi my name is Charna Parkey, I am an EE-PhD student in my 3rd year at the University of Central Florida. I just realized that I began blogging to all of GHC without a proper introduction and that just will not do. Here are a few things details about me and why I love attending the Grace Hopper Celebration.
When I began my PhD two years ago I was nervous about bridging the gap between my two bachelors degrees and my dream to be a PhD researcher. A lot of people have helped along the way. Especially the wonderful group of women in EE and CS at UCF. Because of them I was able to attend GHC 2008 and it was a life changing experience. It was the missing ingredient in my life at the time.
In 2008 I embarked on a journey to GHC with a group of women I barely knew to a place I’d never been before on my first trip “alone”. Until that point I never realized that every trip I had ever taken had been with family, friends, or loved ones. At that time I wished I hadn’t had this sudden realization because for the first time ever I felt homesick. Homesick in the sense that I missed the marginal comfort level I worked so hard to achieve. Marginal because too much comfort does not allow for growth so I am always pushing myself in someway. However, way outside that boundary was what allowed me to grow so much in such a short period. I’ll save the full recount for later, but suffice to say I made some wonderful friends on that trip.
The best advice I can give about attending your first year is to become a Hopper. You may not think that it is for you since you know nothing about the conference but the exact opposite is true. That first year I was a session monitor and it allowed me to meet the wonderful speakers one on one and see how friendly everyone truly is. The experience showed me what GHC is really all about.
Last year I found that I was in a very different place in my life when it came time for GHC 2009 and I understood then why there are so many tracks and options for us to choose. This was the year to begin taking advantage of all there is to offer. Coming back as a Hopper this time allowed me a look behind the scenes with the camera crew. Not only did I get to meet manny wonderful attendees and hear their stories but I also met Dr. Telle Whitney and she even took the time to look at my resume. I could not believe that someone so important took the time to make such an impact on me. It was because of her I attended the resume workshop. (Again a story for another post)
To make a long story short, I hope that you see how important it is to immerse yourself in the conference. Through this immersion I guarantee you that when the whirlwind is over you will come out a different person, a better person, someone ready to take that next step in your life no matter where it takes you.
This year I again find myself in a very different place in my life and am now so grateful to be giving back to GHC through blogging, note-taking, tweeting etc. I’ve planned out my schedule from Tuesday till Friday night and boy is it packed! I will also be a hopper this year, volunteering in the Cyber Center on Tuesday and as a Floater in Thursday so I hope that if you took the time to read this post that you will seek me out at the conference and introduce yourself. Let’s take advantage of all of this social networking and our new pokens (!) and get to know each other.
Have a wonderful night :).
Here is a list of the top 5 reasons I am excited about going to GHC this year. Why are you excited?
1. POKENS!!! You must have one, it is going to be the easiest method to keep in touch with all of your new contacts.
2. After reading the master schedule and creating my own, there is something I want to go to for every session. Boy am I going to be exhausted.
3. I am so excited about making new connections this year and keeping them. I feel like I’ll be at my best since GHC will finally be in my time zone :). I’ve met a lot of you in the past two years, but this is the year evmy Facebook, LinkedIn, Blog, and Twitter are ready to accept connections.
4. My group from UCF is finally staying in the conference hotel! This is huge for us, we finally got enough funding for all 12 girls to be on site. This means no heavy backpacks, no car rentals, and access to my stuff at a moments notice. What a relief!
5. Eating really good food that I am not preparing myself :). Now I am a person that loves to cook, but it is going to be a relief that during this whirlwind food isn’t something I’ll be worried about.
Now don’t be shy everyone, speak up and comment reasons why you are excited.