Our first Alumni meet was presided over by distinguished alumni of MIT who have joined us to share their experiences about being Women in Science and also about their life at MIT.
Speakers: Dr. Anni Coden from the IBM Thomas J Watson research center and Dr. Nupur Garg from MIT and Yale School of Medicine shared their stories and about how MIT changed their lives.
Dr. Anni a computer scientist is currently working at the Thomson Research Lab on insider threat detection. She shared some really interesting insights into her field of research.
Then she talked a little about applying to schools and what are the important things one must consider. The first being that your application should stand out. What have you done differently. She says it is most important that everyone must consider
“You are special”
“You are great”
Dr. Anni came up with an interesting exercise called Brag Sheet and made our alumni to each talk something great about themselves.
The girls found it surprisingly hard. Eventually they all came up with some good points about themselves.
This exercise left us all feeling inspired and that we can make a difference and that we have it in us to achieve something great.
Dr. Nupur Garg, Resident in the Emergency Medicine at Mount Sinai hospital brought in a lot of energy and enthusiasm to our day.
She shared her experiences as a Woman in Science and gave us some insights into the difficulties she faced during each stage of her career.
She then gave us some important steps and suggestions while applying for schools. The first things she told us was to queation ourselves. Why do want to do this? What has inspired us to take this up. She says
If you have the initiative, Do it even if you think its crazy
She says team work is really important.
Find your opportunities, passions and follow them
The other interesting thing she shared, which I think the girls will find very useful is
” Don’t talk if you cannot sell yourself”
Our morning session went really well and the girls were left feeling inspired and enthusiastic
We then departed for a tour of Research Labs at NYU POLY.
We visited the Dynamical Systems Lab of Dr. Maurizio Porfiri and Mechtronics Lab of Dr. Vikram Kapila and Organic Electronics Lab of Dr. Kalle Levon.
The tour was informative and inspiring.
We at GSTEM would like to give our gratitude to Dr. Anni Coden and Dr. Nupur Garg for spending time with us.
Dr. Porfiri, Dr. Kapila and Dr. Levon for the tour. Jared and Paul for taking time off their work to show us around the labs and Dr. Mark Saul and Dr. Matthew Leingang for GSTEM and to the Alfred P Sloan Foundation for their generous support in making this possible.
