Yesterday between traveling, sightseeing at the inner harbor, and eating delicious crab cakes, I have been asking GHC attendees on what they wanted to get out of this conference. Here’s a quick summary of what I got:
- No expectations so far, from newcomers
- Full-time job, quite a few people are in the job market right now. Some post-docs.
- Networking
- Learning more to see what fields in computer science interest them
- Gathering people to pitch for a panel idea next year
My personal wish list is:
- Get more involved in GHC or Anita Borg Institute beyond the school level. This was on my wishlist last year, but the biggest suggestion I got was to start a GHC regional conference, which turns out is a very difficult thing to do as a student and in a state that already had one(it was on the other side of the state though).
- Get a support group for graduate school life. Quite a bit of my friends have left/graduated/moved on to bigger and better things, but I am still in grad school, and would like some support group I can rant to (and be ranted at) get some candid advice, and get support/support others in the process. I am not the ranty type on facebook and social media networks, so it would be great to get support group.
- Get an industry oriented internship. I got a university and a government internship but I lack experience on the industry side. Ideally I would want something that uses my 3D interaction skills, such as developing some cool game on the Kinect or something, or even uses my research, gaming development or my HCI skills would be great.
- Find someone who knows what video game my necklace references. The video game series just got two new additions to be released soon. If you do get it, I will totally get all fangirly & show off my favorite defense lawyer.
- Really, the above is go network and find HCI and/or nerdy people who are fans of similar things I am in. Also I can totally fangirl over Portal, Avatar: Korra, Japanese animation, arts & crafty things , 3D interaction, gaming and many others, so I am a general nerd.
- Gangnam Style @ GHC. I will request the song to every DJ and every party at the conference. This must happen.
If you have any tips to share, lemme know!