The Grace Hopper Celebration, a very well-known women in tech conference, happened last week. A couple of my friends went and came back satisfied with their experience and excited by all the things they had done. Personally, I've never considered going to GHC. Back when applications to get sponsored by UT were open, I didn’t even bother to apply because I knew that I would be swamped with homework come October-- and lo and behold, I was right.
Apples and oranges shouldn’t be compared.
When you play the comparison game, everyone loses.
Among all my CS coursework, my other interests sometimes get buried.
I love computer science. There's nothing like sitting down at my computer for hours on end to work on a complex coding problem. I enjoy the problem-solving, the collaboration, even the search for bugs. But with that being said, computer science isn't my passion. I like it enough to deepen my understanding through taking classes, and I could code every day as my job without getting bored. However, I'm not one of those kids who is intrigued by each problem, who reads language APIs for fun, who comes up with new and innovative projects to work on in their free time.
The last week was very busy for me. With the combined pressure of homework, extracurricular activities, and recruiting season, my well-laid plans quickly fell apart. Since it was the third week of school, my schedule was filled with intro club meetings, auditions for the theater clubs I'm in, and meet-ups with friends I hadn't seen all summer. Unfortunately, this also coincided with career fair week, so on top of schoolwork and social obligations, I also had to go to networking events and prepare for career fair.
With career fair rolling around, it's tempting to take whatever offer comes in your direction, especially if you feel unqualified. I know when I was a freshman, I was desperate for any attention that companies would give me, so I didn't stop to think about which companies I was interviewing for. However, it's important to remember that you will be working at the company of your choice for a long amount of time. You don't want to just chase the money when making your choice.
