Bookworms and Travelbugs

The Grace Hopper Conference is one of the largest gathering of women in tech! And this year I am one of the few women from my company to be attending it .

We met up with past conference goers over lunch and they doled out some real good practical advice!

1. Attend the keynotes (They are super inspiring.)

2. Dress as casual or as formal as you want.

3. Bring a sweater/cardigan coz it can get cold during the sessions.

4. Try to attend as many parties/events that you can. They are the best places to network and meet interesting women in tech.

5. Go the career fair even if you are not looking for a job. It helps to know what interesting work other companies are doing out. They also have some awesome swag.

6. Schedule your sessions in advance – Look up the speaker bios and decide whether you prefer industry speakers/academic speakers. The app has good scheduling features.

7. Try to attend 1-2 career track talks. Find the ones closely aligned with your career path.

8. Prepare elevator speeches. You need a 30 second one and a 1 minute one.

9. Carry an empty bag to put all your swag in.

10. And don’t forget to HAVE FUN!!!

Before you go, take some time to reflect and think about what you want out of the event. 

Here’s a sheet from GHC that can help you:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1d2lYoe-zLiLdxKP6q-vRQVL67Ncz0g45vzjPHU0o-JA/edit

A few more people have written detailed posts describing the preps required before the conference and their experience afterwards. You can check them out here:
Before the conference:
http://ghcbloggers.blogspot.ca/2016/09/travelling-to-ghc.html
http://anitabees.blogspot.ca/2017/09/traveling-to-orlando-and-packing-tips.html
After the conference for a good recap:
https://anishanarang.wordpress.com/2015/12/14/ghc-2015/
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