Welcome to Stanford WiCS!
By Nidhi Manoj
A warm welcome to all the new Women in Computer Science (WiCS) members and freshmen this year! We are so excited to have you join our family. The group has many tech talks, events, etc but most importantly, WiCS is a wonderful group of amazing and talented Stanford women.
In high school, a major concern of mine was that there were few other girls in CS around me; I attended hackathons of nearly 200+ people, of which less than 10 were women. Coming to Stanford, I was drawn to and very pleasantly surprised by WiCS. Since then, I always seem to find fellow WiCS members whether I’m in a Stanford class, club meeting, or dining hall. So to all our new members, I strongly encourage you to reach out to other WiCS women and get to know them.
One of the best things about being part of this close-knit community is that the women in the network constantly encourage one another to get involved in Computer Science in new intellectually engaging ways. I want to share some of these takeaways with you and hopefully help you take advantage of the WiCS community.
As you take more CS classes at Stanford, WiCS can help you find study groups. Keep an eye out for the group study sessions, organized by our board, where you can eat great snacks and work with others taking the same courses. Reach out to WiCS members for class project partnerships etc: I’ve found myself growing and improving, learning from others in the process. Upperclassmen can also provide advice on navigating CS on campus and tips for which classes to take etc: reach out to them over coffee. If you are ever alone in the dining halls or joining a new club and see a WiCS member, reach out and talk to them.
I’ve also had the opportunity to build cool projects with some WiCS members for hackathons and final projects. Especially if you’re interested in hackathons, consider reaching out to others in the group before the WiCS-organized HackOverflow hackathon, coming up in April. Last year, there were prizes for Best Hardware, Most Creative, and many more. Give it a shot, especially if you’ve never been to a hackathon before!
WiCS has become an important and integral part of my Stanford experience; I am thankful to have made close friends and shared wonderful experiences. We are all in the same boat and we can always use more powerful and independent women in our lives!
