Getting Involved

As many of you may know, this is my first GHC.  I am so excited to go; I've only heard spectacular things about this upcoming experience.  I'm honored to have received a scholarship to go since that was able to free up funds to allow one of my fellow students to come with me!
When I first decided I wanted to go to GHC earlier this year, I really wanted to be able to participate in the conference.  I prepared and submitted a BoF proposal.  Unfortunately, my proposal wasn't accepted.  This was rather disappointing for me.  After looking at the program though, I could see that absolute best of best will be presenting.  I've come to conclusion that if you have to get beat, get beat by the best!  I know that all the sessions are going to be riveting!  I wish I could be in five places at once so I could go to them all!
Because I wouldn't be participating in the conference in the "official" capacity, I started to look around for other ways that I could participate in the conference.  As is turns out, there are lots and lots of opportunities to participate in the conference, even if your name isn't on the program schedule!  I've been able to contribute to and follow this blog.  This has really helped calm some first-timer nerves (Thanks Kate for the great posts!).  I also follow GHC on Twitter and offered to send updates during the conference!  Then I realized that I can also help with video blogging.  I got a camcorder last Christmas, so that would be perfect for me!  Ashley (my fellow student) and I are planning on teaming up to make some great videos while we're at GHC.  I'm also planning on taking notes at all the sessions I go to, in order to contribute to the GHC wiki.  That will be a great resource for me to take home and use with DePauw's Women in Computer Science group too.
The opportunities for participating in GHC are endless!  I'm so elated that I'll be able to contribute so much to the conference.  Being able to participate so much has given me a small sense of ownership of GHC and I want my participation in GHC to help make it the best GHC that it can be!
I love being involved in the GHC community.  It's so supportive and the connections made with other women are so valuable.  If participating in GHC sounds like something you can and want to do, I highly recommend it.  I believe there is a deadline of September 18th, so you have to hurry!  Check out all the ways to get involved on the GHC Community home page!
See everyone soon!  —Ed