15 girls from Fife High School and 10 girls from Columbia Junior High ventured to Hulu for their first IGNITE experience. After being met by Wendy Grus and given an overview of Hulu, the girls received a tour of the downtown Seattle office. The tour was provided by Matt and was followed by an activity designed to facilitate creativity, collaboration and communication. Wendy recruited women from Hulu’s Software Development, Data Analysis and Quality Assurance departments to help our students. Madison, Wendy, Sarah, Shawna, Jess, Tracy and Piera all did an amazing job guiding conversations, encouraging students to share ideas and providing insight into workplace dynamics. Students ended their work sessions by presenting their ideas to the entire group
Wendy and the others from Hulu were all very gracious and provided lunch and stayed with our students to interact on a more informal basis. This gave students time to feel more comfortable and ask questions they may have been too shy to ask in a large group setting.
After lunch, the Hulu women were able to stay and give students an insight into their unique journeys from high school to Hulu. They were encouraging and insightful and helped our students see opportunities and career paths in a new way. There stories and life experiences helped lessen the fear of taking math and technology classes for many of our girls.
Quotes from some of our girls:
“I loved the mini tour and the activity! The activity made me think more about what variables we must think of when creating something new! It inspired me to become a “harder thinker.” Hoeun
“I enjoyed learning the experiences that the panel had to go through to get into Computer Science.” Mya
“My highlight was the panel because I got to hear more in depth about the company and some personal experience from employees.” Lauren
“I enjoyed the activity where you needed to solve a problem in the TV work. It inspired me to solve more problems in creative ways. Also, the tour was so cool to see where everyone worked and where I could work.” Karah
“Now I want to try taking some computer classes.” Katie
“All of the ladies were so nice and it was interesting to hear most of them didn’t even think they would work in technology when they were our age.” Mady
