Attending Grace Hopper Celebration as a Facebook Scholarship Recipient: A Personal Experience

I attended the Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC) in 2013 as a recipient of the Facebook (FB) scholarship and had an AMAZING time. That year, the conference was held in Minneapolis, a city I still remember fondly for its welcoming atmosphere and rich tech culture.

Pre-Conference Experience and Events

Facebook's GRACE HOPPER scholarship is quite involved. I was initially nervous, but the program was designed to ease the transition. For example, I was asked to fly out early. On the first night, all scholarship recipients, staff, and mentors enjoyed a dinner on a small dinner cruise. This event was a great way to bond. Initially, everyone was shy, but soon we were all laughing and sharing horror stories of interviewing and recruiting experiences. It was reassuring to learn that none of us were alone in experiencing setbacks and failures that were common among us.

I immediately formed a close bond with the other scholarship recipients. This was one of the biggest takeaways for me: I was not alone and there was no need to always be the best or to excel in every interview or test. It was perfectly normal to not always succeed.

Special Events and Sessions

One of my favorite parts of the pre-conference events was a session where we shared projects we had worked on or been a part of. The age range of the students was diverse, leading to a wide variety of projects. Some were hackathon projects, others included a corgi matching game, and some were full-blown data analysis of Yelp data. It was truly amazing to meet other women in tech who were all working on interesting and innovative projects at different stages in their careers.

Other events centered around mentorship, interview preparation, and career advice. The Facebook engineers who mentored us came from different product areas and career stages. This diversity gave us a broad perspective on what it means to be an engineer and on various career paths. Sheryl Sandberg, CEO of Facebook, was also in attendance; she gave a special talk for scholarship recipients and signed copies of "Lean In" for us. We even got to do a quick QA session with her, which was a truly special moment.

Fun and Down Time

There was also a lot of fun and downtime. For me, some of this time was spent doing homework and grading. However, I found other girls who were also in the same boat. It was nice to go to sessions with other people and have familiar faces at the conference. We became fast friends and are still very close with three of the girls I spent a lot of time with. When I was in the San Francisco Bay Area for an event earlier this year, I met up with each of them, and I expect to see them more often now that I am based here.

Overall Experience and Encouragement

Being an FB GRACE HOPPER Scholarship recipient is more than just getting a ticket to Grace Hopper. I gained a lot of confidence and inspiration from the other ladies. The scholarship is now closed for this year, but I would definitely encourage others to apply. It is a lot of fun and definitely worth the extra days at the conference.