Women Engineers (WE) Program by TalentSprint in collaboration with Google is a specially designed scholarship for talented women engineering students form non-elite engineering colleges. The program aims to nurture promising talent among women engineering students and enable them to become world class software engineers.
Team NSN interacted with a few of the talented participants from the ongoing cohort who shared their experience and their dreams. In this success story, we’ve captured the journey of these women engineers in their own words.
Let’s begin with how the program is breaking stereotypes when it comes to coding. “In colleges, most of the coding clubs are run by boys. They sit together and code. They would never allow a girl to enter the club. They have a stereotypical mindset that girls can’t code. However, here I got a chance to meet like-minded girls who love to code just like me. We can have a technical discussion without getting judged”, said A. V. L. Harshita, a participant of the 2019 Cohort, TalentSprint Women Engineer (WE) Program.
Women play a pioneering role in programming and technology. Despite the fact, globally, the participation of women engineers in the technology sector is considerably less. To increase their participation and to develop a sense of confidence, TalentSprint designed the Women Engineers (WE) Program in collaboration with Google.
Bookish knowledge is not enough, applied knowledge is the key to success
Bookish knowledge is not enough to learn a new technology, applied knowledge is very crucial. Speaking on how WE program provides a boot camp to learn new things by actually applying them, Aditi Agarwal, WE participant, 2019 Cohort said, “during the program, I got to learn a lot of new technologies by actually applying them and doing the practical. The program taught me how to learn a new technology within a short span of time. Before, when I used to do competitive coding, I only used to solve the problems. After joining the boot camp, our mentor has taught us to never just solve the problems but learn the idioms of the problems.”
The participants were also benefited by the latest industry-driven curriculum that helped them in keeping abreast with trending technologies.
“The industry is dynamic and our textbook is static and the syllabus is outdated as well. This program gave us a platform to learn the most basic things in programing. In this program, we never hesitated to clear our doubts, even the most basic ones. Here, we came to know that there is a lot of difference in the type of coding that we do as a part of our curriculum in universities and the real time project coding. We’ve also learnt to deal with the minute details. We learned to write code in such a manner which can be changed late; this is very crucial for the industry”, said Ms. Spriha, WE participant, 2019 Cohort.
Talking about the importance of reusability and proper flow of a code, Ms. Monica Sai Kambala, WE participant, 2019 Cohort, explained, “most of us tend to ignore the correct way of writing codes. We tend to overlook the basics like proper indentation, variable naming and all which are very important to read and understand a code. Here, we were taught to focus on that. Now I write clear and reusable codes. When someone else looks at my code they are able to figure out the flow. Which is again crucial as in industry developers actually write codes for others to read and understand.”
Way to success with required skills and all-round development
The program focuses on the all-round development of the participants and provides them all the necessary training and sessions needed to become something more than just a good software engineer.
Live classes from Google leaders and sessions like “I am Remarkable”, build confidence in the participants and ensure their success in every stage of life. Sharing her experience on the “I am Remarkable” session, Ms. Archita Jain, WE participant, 2019 Cohort, said, “Google mentoring sessions actually helped me a lot to overcome my insecurities. “I am Remarkable” session taught me to compare myself with my previous version and not with others. It gave me a platform to be a better version of myself. I have become more confident and I have started acknowledging my achievements, which I wouldn’t have done otherwise. “
The “I am Remarkable” session is all about acknowledging one’s achievements. The session taught the participants how to present them confidently. It teaches them to value each and every skill that they have. It empowers the women engineers to come out of their comfort zones and value their achievements.
Related article: TalentSprint WE Program to be expanded with enhanced support from Google https://nationalskillsnetwork.in/talentsprint-we-program-to-be-expanded-with-enhanced-support-from-google/
Under the Women Engineers (WE) Program, participants also get sessions on communication skills and other skills for their all-round development. “Apart from technical sessions, we had communication sessions where we had to make the presentations within 15 mins and we had to present ourselves. We were taught how to give good presentations and how to follow the proper format and dress code while giving a presentation”, said Ms. Aditi Agarwal, WE participant, 2019 Cohort.
Sharing her thoughts on the sessions, Ms. Sumanjali, WE participants, 2019 Cohort, said, ” here we were taught to handle interviews. We have faced a lot of mock interviews, so that we can have the practice to attend technical interviews and make all the mistakes here where we can be corrected. It makes all the actual interview experiences a little easier.”
“After getting trained here, we feel like nothing really is impossible. Along with learning new skills, we also learnt to tackle things which are already there. In our last mentoring session, we learnt to deal with rejections, which is again very important”, said Ms Archita Jain, WE participant, 2019 Cohort.
Coming from different places in India, the program helps the participants to work with people with different mindsets and beliefs. It teaches them self-learning and teamwork, which are two important things in an industry. They have become determined, confident and well versed with all the much needed skills for the IT industry. This will help them leverage the opportunities in product based companies including Google and ensure a bright and successful future. The program is breaking barriers by providing an opportunity for talented and motivated women engineering students to excel in the global tech industry.
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