Mentee under WiMLDS Mentorship Program (Week-1)
The least of us is improved by the things done by the best of us, because if we are not able to land at least we are able to follow. (July 20, 1969 CBS Moon Landing Coverage) ― Walter Cronkite
If you would have asked someone in the 1960s if a man would ever land on the moon, you and I both know the answer to that which is a big “No”. But, ever since America landed Neil Armstrong on the moon, you must have noticed how that “NO” changed to a “YES” and indeed, we have done it more than one time, and every time, it got easier than before.
Notice that the task was still the same, but it got easy. WHY? Because we knew that it had been done before. We had a direction to head towards.
I truly believe that all of the greatest things mankind has ever achieved definitely shapes the future of the coming generation.
Recently I stumbled upon one such initiative started by the organization, Women in Machine Learning and Data Science (WiMLDS) — WiMLDS MENTORSHIP PROGRAM
We all understand that the IT industry like many others is still quite male-dominated and lacks representation at its core. Young girls in STEM require special assistance to navigate and also be able to envision what is possible due to lack of representation.
WiMLDS Mentorship Program connects the Armstrongs(mentors) with the future Armstrongs(mentees). Its mentors are a group of amazing women having a career in Technology who aims to inspire and mentor their younger counterparts in the male-dominated field, Computer science.
How I ended up choosing CS as major
I am a first-generation female college student coming from a low-income family, so basically I do tick all the boxes when it comes to having a non-traditional background. How I ended up in CS when no one in my family even completed their high school? Well, this one is actually an interesting story.
I didn’t even know what coding meant until I started my 12th standard which is when I met a boy who was representing his country in IOI. I was instantly hooked to hear all about his experience from traveling to a different country for free and also having to do all these complex things that I didn’t understand.
I was intrigued but highly doubted my ability since I didn’t find many women to look up to. When I started college, I ended up being in a tier-3 university where the coding culture itself was as bad as it can get, so much so that we don’t even have male role models.
That is when I decided to take things into my hands and stand up for my career and how I wouldn’t let my college define my worth. Ever since I have done some awesome stuff but the void of not having someone to look up to, to interact with was still there and has definitely hampered my journey as a woman in Tech.
WiMLDS Mentorship Program
I came across WiMLDS Mentorship Program applications on LinkedIn where I am very active.
I absolutely fell in love with the idea of the program which aims to connect women leaders/ professionals in CS with the women who are seeking guidance. For me, it meant, I could have that environment of looking up to your seniors and actually understanding and be in the mindset of “It’s possible.”
I did doubt if I would get in or not, but luckily I got my acceptance last week and we delved into the 4-week program right away.
WEEK 1: Introduction
The first week was all about meeting your mentor and interacting with them, learning more about their journey, and sharing about yourself and what you look forward to.
I got connected with an amazing woman and my mentor, Jap Leen Kaur Jolly. I would say I wouldn’t have gotten a better match.
Jap Leen Kaur Jolly is currently a final year student pursuing CSE at IGDTUW and has various feathers in her hat from being an incoming SWE at Google to working with different communities during her undergrad since 2017 and an excellent academic background.
I was astonished at first at how she could do so many things at the same time. But, I believe I felt that way because I didn’t meet someone or interacted with someone like her before. This is what representation does, It helps you to envision things that look impossible to you but are easily achievable.
We started our first week with a call with our mentors. My call with Jap Leen focused on understanding all the things that baffled me about her, ranging from her career to multi-tasking, interview experience, and preparations.
After learning more and more about her, it gave me so much confidence in myself and the things that I want to work on. It really motivated me to be more focused and concentrated on the things that I want. My initial goal is to focus on being interview-ready.
We laid out plans which focused on brushing up my DSA for an upcoming interview and a scholarship online coding challenge. But, in the bigger picture, Jap Leen helped me focus more on learning new things and building projects which can help me demonstrate my knowledge.
She was very patient at hearing all of our doubts and helping us to realize where we are going wrong.
We concluded week 1 by laying out plans for the rest of the duration of the program and the opportunities that we would like to apply to in the summer of in upcoming placement season.
In the upcoming weeks, I look forward to work on various thing including :
- Deciding on a project to work on.
After letting Jap Leen analyze my profile, we realized that I do not have many practical hands-on projects.
Jap Leen focused on the fact of how important projects are when it comes to shortlisting a resume for off-campus opportunities. I aim to decide on the technology that I would wanna work on before the mentorship program ends.
2. Understanding the usage of different CP Platforms, Leetcoding, etc.
As much as it is important to understand the concepts, your success on interviews directly depends on the number of problems that you have worked through, on competitive programming platforms, or interview preparation platforms.
Again, that’s why my mentor is the best match as She herself has cleared interviews of prestigious companies like Google and Microsoft. Her valuable guidance in the first week on how important problem-solving is, motivated me to make this a part of my schedule.
3. How to better engage in communities and help others.
Even though, these three are at the top of my list. I believe the learnings under the Mentorship program regardless of if I will achieve all of the goals/expectations or not will be exponential.
At last, I wanna thank Delhi WiMLDS for this amazing program and Jap Leen for taking her precious time out to volunteer and help students like me to do better. I am very grateful and look forward to the amazing rest of the 3 weeks of learning ahead.
