4/8/16
Hi All,
We had a fabulous day at Microsoft.
Thirty-six eighth grade girls attended an advanced programming workshop and it proved to be an exceptional experience. The girls attended the basic programming workshop last year and now as eighth graders, were ready to move up to a more advanced experience. After the workshop, Microsoft provided a wonderful lunch and women came from all over the company to share their stories and inspiration with the girls. As usual the panel was huge, 9 women attended, which shows how much women at Microsoft are committed to work with the girls!
A big thank you to Christine Alexander, and Aparna Vishawanathan for making this day wonderful as always.
Each and every detail was thought about and made perfect. A lot of moving furniture included! There is a lot that goes into making an event so special and we have these women to thank for taking their volunteer time to make it happen.
Thank you to Ashley Myers, IGNITE TKP workshop teacher. Ashley’s leadership in these workshops is world class. She trains the women who volunteer in these workshops and makes sure they understand how to help the girls while they are learning. Five years in and Ashley is so dedicated to making these workshops go well. Her workshops are dynamic and inspire the girls to love to code. It’s really exciting to witness.
Thank you to all of the women who mentored the girls during the coding class and participated in the lunch panel. You all enthusiastically shared your stories and advice with the girls and even spoke with them in small groups so that the girls could have more intimate discussions. You are all what makes IGNITE successful. You are so open and uplifting with the girls, so they can learn from your journey to help their own.
Thank you to Holly Muenchow, Program Manager, Vaz Rosario, Service Engineer, Casey Schaerti, SWE, Allison Buchholte, Program Manager, Joanna Mason, Program Manager, Mariana Rios, Service Engineer, Malini Jagannadhan, Program Manager, Simina Pasat, Program Manager, and Diane Marshall.
Thank you to an amazing Engineering Teacher from South Shore PK-8 who inspires the girls every day. The girls might not always realize how fortunate they are to have an engineering class at school in 8th grade, and on top of that, the best teacher in the world, Mawiayah Fields. This year Mawiayah won the Middle School IGNITE Teacher Best Practice award and it was well deserved. She has been involved with IGNITE for 5 years now and she deserves the award every year!
Thank you to the parent chaperones, who always are there to help out: Anita Koyier-Mwamba, and Eaoh Sourichanh. Thank you so much for your volunteer time!
Here are the comments from the girls’ survey forms.
They always say it best.
This event inspired me because I didn’t know there were so many fields and things you can do in engineering.
What inspired me were the people’s stories because it made me think anything is possible, even if you go through tough times.
I really liked talking to the women and listening to the panel. How much their stories of how they got to where they are varied, and just hearing the advice they gave us on certain things.
Learning the new coding program was a lot of fun and listening to the women talk really inspired me. It thought this day was perfect.
I loved the coding, making the building and adding the roof. I also really enjoyed listening to the volunteer panel. I think this event is great the way it is.
Listening to the volunteers talk was the highlight for me. I think this event is perfect.
This event inspired me because if you want to be something you should go for it.
I liked the women who came and talked to us about their careers and life.
This event really helped me know what is available for me to major in a career or pursue my dream.
The speakers, overall stories of how people succeeded, Inspirational!
Learning about how some of the ladies on the panel went through a lot but were able to find a job that made them happy.
I really enjoyed the talk with the engineers. The coding was really fun. And I enjoyed the small group talks J
I really enjoyed hearing women tell their life stories.
The highlight for me was talking to the women about their jobs, and it inspired me to work harder. Everything was great.
I enjoyed hearing the women talk about how they enjoy their jobs.
The highlights for me were the workshop, the food and the small group.
My highlight was coding because it was fun and it inspired me.
I enjoyed our coding and what we worked on. I really liked everything we did today.
I really liked when the ladies talked to us to inspire us more. I also liked the coding. This was all great.
I enjoyed getting to design something with my mind.
The highlights were coding, and learning about more opportunities.
The coding and hearing the ladies talk.
Thank you all for making such an amazing day for the girls.
Cathi