Polly is a winner of the Portland Affiliate NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing, our award recognizing outstanding high school women for their computing aspirations and achievements. Below she describes receiving her award at a ceremony during NCWIT’s Portland, Oregon, Summit on Women and IT last week, and her thoughts on the award’s impact.
The NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing is a great honor and I would just like to thank you all involved at NCWIT. This is definitely going on my résumé!
After recieving the Award I was interviewed by KGW Channel 8 with the other two young ladies at my school who won – that was really neat. It was actually my second time being intervied by a news station so I was excited. The reporter pointed out that we could be the ones setting the bar for other ladies in our school, and I agree.
I have a few friends who thought about doing robotics and I know that they would have been great at it but were afraid of being the only girl. This shows that we just go for it, if being a woman is the only obstacle well thats great a bonus for us. With all of that said, I will continue applying to different awards in technology this showed me that I can do it. This year I have an internship at the Crawfish festival in Tualatin, Oregon, which would be a good learning experience on how to throw an event and working with people.
I hope one day that I will make an impact either with women or in a technology field. I know we ladies will just continue to rise.
Thanks!
-Polly I.
