We had a wonderful Presentation event this past Tuesday at Sealth HS.
We had 80 girls sign up and it was a packed house. I ordered 20 pizza”s and it was all eaten quickly. Wow! The women on the panel were amazing. Thank you to Cierra McDonald, Program Manager, Microsoft, Noressa Calos, Security Engineer, Microsoft, Erika Harnett, Research Professor University of Washington, Kim Topolski, Software Engineer, Synapse Corporation, and Janna Harela, Event Program Manager, Microsoft.
There will be lots of pictures up soon, so look for the newsletter announcement that they are up. The women really connected with the girls and also answered all of their great questions. It was such an uplifting and inspiring event.
Also thank you to the wonderful teacher DeAira Handugan, who is really an exceptional teacher and has the girls doing an IGNITE event every month! We are so fortunate to have her on board. And thank you to Edith Ruby the Librarian for making us feel so welcome! They closed the library for us.
Here are some of the comments from the girls evaluation forms. I will give you a sample of the comments.
- I loved hearing women’s stories about their lives and how they got to where they are today.
- My favorite thin about today’s event was hearing about the speakers personal challenges to get where they are today. Feeling like I could relate even just a bit to each of these people make me feel more comfortable and confident with my struggles to come like getting into college and finding what I want to do.
- Having the speakers with different backgrounds was helpful in relating with them. I enjoyed how they answered our questions.
- Learning about the different career fields and finding out that Microsoft hires right out of college was great.
- I liked listening to all of the separate stories from these women. I also enjoyed that the open feeling showing that the sky is the limit. I am very interested in the IGNITE program.
- I loved the stories these women told us, they were very inspiring.
- I enjoyed hearing about science and space, and NASA.
- I love to hear the stories of other women. some of them I could relate to. It was really very inspiring to me and interesting to me.
- I liked hearing all the information about the different career choices and hearing peoples personal experiences.
- I liked hearing the story about the woman who did not excel in high school but ended up doing well later in life.
- I loved the guest speakers. They spoke very well about how they got to where they are today.
- Their stories made me want to pursue a career in IT!
- The speakers really inspired me, especially one of them. Her story sounds almost exactly like my life so far. It allowed me to connect and take it seriously. As well as think about the fact that this was something I could actually do.
Today’s event was really informative and inspiring. I learned a lot from the guest speakers. Also I like how they inspire us that we can do great.
Thank you all for such an amazing event.
Cathi Rodgveller
View the Chief Sealth High School chapter page