One student's experience at CUSEC 2013

SYSTEM.OUT - My Experience at CUSEC 2013

N.B. A revised version of this post can be found on my blog.

On January 17th, I attended CUSEC 2013 (Canadian University Software Engineering Conference) in Montreal. Initially, I was interested in going to hear a talk given by my friend and mentor, Gail Carmichael– not to mention the chance to meet notable people in the software industry.

Delegates, organizers, and presenters

The unofficial theme of the first day seemed to be "visualizing data." One of the speakers I was most excited about was Ben Fry, one of the co-founders of the Processing language. I've used Processing before, and Fry used several live examples of Processing programs being used to visualize information. Perhaps a description from the processing website tells it best:

"Processing is an open source programming language and environment for people who want to create images, animations, and interactions. Initially developed to serve as a software sketchbook and to teach fundamentals of computer programming within a visual context."

Me and Gail, waiting for the next talk

Continuing the theme of visualizing data, the next talk was from the San Francisco-based company Palantir. Their mission is to simplify the process of analysing large or complex data sets, by using tools to visualize it in a more human-readable way. In the hour-long software demonstration, a live demonstration of Palanir's software was used to map E. Coli outbreaks across the United States. By adding data to the map, the user was able to locate the specific meat-distribution plant that was the source of the outbreak. It should be evident that this method is both faster and potentially more accurate that other means of tracking the outbreak.

Overall, it was a great conference, and introduced me to the cool things that people are building with software. I had a great time and learned quite a bit - from the speakers, representatives from software companies, and students from other Canadian university. I hope to volunteer with planning CUSEC 2014, and would recommend the experience to other computer science or software eng students.

- Liz Allen

@liz_codes

Liz blogged about her experience at the conference she attended as part of the CU-WISE initiative Blog To Attend A Conference Fund. Check out our Opportunities page for more details.

Navigating Career Success

The Ottawa Chapter of WISE is proud to present an excellent event for young scientists and engineers that are going into the job market. The 2013 Event Series: Navigating Career Success is a discussion of four professional women who will share their advice and experiences as well as take questions from the audience to help them as they enter the job market. The event is Thursday January 17 from 5:30 - 7:30 p.m. and I highly recommend it! 

Panel Speakers:
Margaret McKay, M.Sc., LL.B., National Research Council of Canada
Josephine Davidson, Environment Canada
Mia Batchelor, Environment Canada
Michelle Illing, Ph. D., Canadian Food Inspection Agency

Date and Time: January 17, 2013; 5:30 – 7:30 PM
Location: Boardroom MC 2014, Minto Building, Carleton University Campus.
RSVP: Please RSVP to banu_ormeci@carleton.ca.
There is no admission fee!

CEMF Dillon Undergraduate Engineering Scholarship

The Canadian Engineering Memorial Foundation (CEMF) has announced a NEW!! 2013 scholarship for women in engineering. Partnering with Dillon Consulting Limited a $5,000 Dillon Undergraduate in Engineering scholarship is now open across Canada to a woman studying engineering in an accredited university program. THE DEADLINE IS THIS FEB.22, 2013. The application in English and French is on the CEMF website www.cemf.ca.

The Future of Research in the Alberta Oil Sands - International Oil Sands Tailings Conference Review

Lisa is blogging about her experience as part of the CU-WISE initiative Blog To Attend A Conference Fund. Check out our Opportunities page for more details. 

The International Oil Sands Tailings Conference (IOSTC) is a bi-annual meeting for presenting research aimed at developing innovative means of addressing tailings related issues associated with the development of the Alberta Oil Sands. The conference was held from December 2-5, 2012 in Edmonton, Alberta at the Mayfield Inn and Conference Center. The conference brought together 360 experts, and interested individuals, to address tailings technology and management. Speakers addressed challenging issues such as oil sands tailings management, the required research efforts to overcome these challenges and, how the industry is responding. Papers were presented under the following themes: Tailings Containment, Soft Tailings and Stabilization, Tailings Dewatering, Reclamation, Chemical Interactions, New Tailings Management Concepts, and Water and Heat Considerations. A full list of presenters and abstracts can be found at https://uofa-cee.gobigevent.com:443/prothos/onware.x/conference/web/index.p?!=public=13549203058167=41=25697969&Conference=10293

Keynote speakers addressed future goals and areas of future concern while stressing the importance of reclamation studies. It appears that reclaiming and monitoring reclamation is the new main industry challenge. The talk I presented was the only one that addressed ecological reclamation. The talk titled ‘The use of benthic microorganisms (thecamoebians) to assess ecological response to tailings pond water quality changes and define endpoints to remediation efforts’ introduced a means of monitoring ecosystem development with reclamation efforts. This research is currently being conducted here at Carleton University in the Earth Science department.

Upon the completion of my Ph.D. I intend to work in Alberta in relation to the oil sands industry. The general public consensus is that finding work in Alberta is easy but if you actually talk to those looking, finding a career that fits your skillset is rather difficult. The oil companies have relationships with universities in Alberta and positions are typically filled from that pool of candidates. For me attendance at the conference was vital to finding a job. Business people and company researchers mainly attended the conference so the venue was an excellent opportunity for networking. I was one of only two students from outside of Alberta in attendance so I am thankful for the funding assistance that allowed me this opportunity.

The Celebration of Women in Science and Engineering is Just Around the Corner!

Last year's Celebration was pretty awesome, but this year is going to be something special.  You see, we've made a big effort to ensure our talks are fun and exciting no matter what your background is.

So, for example, if you're in biology, you'll understand what the computer scientists and engineers are talking about.  Even if you aren't in science or engineering at all, you will enjoy what we have to offer!

Even better, we've invited a group of high school girls to be in our audience this year.  We've already got more than 25 signed up.  We're hoping that we can ignite a love of science and engineering in these students, and show them the awesome choice that Carleton is for post-secondary education.

The full schedule with talk titles and descriptions is now posted online, so go check it out and we'll see you on April 6!

What's it All About?

The link above describes it like this:

The Carleton Celebration of Women in Science and Engineering is a showcase of graduate students, faculty, and alumni of Carleton University. The number of women who enrol in many science and engineering programs is quite low, so the amazing things they do can easily go unnoticed. This day puts them in the spotlight.

The goal of this event is two-fold. First, we aim to provide networking opportunities for all female science and engineering students. Second, we would like to see members of the greater Carleton community and the general public attend these talks and learn about some of the great things happening in science and engineering. We want the world to know that there really are successful women in these fields!

This year's Celebration will showcase research and projects done by female students and faculty from Carleton in a way that is accessible to the general public, including high school students.

Everyone is invited!

WISE Steps to Success a Big Success

This post originally appeared on my personal blog, The Female Perspective of Computer Science.

Last Wednesday CU-WISE held a professional development event called WISE Steps to Success for a second year.  It's one of our flagship events, and was designed to give women in science and engineering the networking, negotiation, and confidence skills we aren't taught in class.

From the event description:

There's more to success than just passing your courses. There are a lot of skills to be learned outside of the classroom that greatly contribute to your future. And the earlier you start learning them, the earlier you can reach your goals.

Carleton's WISE, IEEE WIE, and Career Services have joined forces to give you the career building essentials and help you stand out. Whether you are actively looking for a job or not, this is an event you don't want to miss. This year we have also teamed up with local organization Dress for Success.

The event is free for Carleton's women in sciences and engineering, and will include a light dinner and dessert. You will hear from experts on networking, the importance of making a great first impression, dressing for success, confidence building, and negotiation skills. You will also have the opportunity to speak to mentors from academia and industry, to meet other students in your field, and to practice your skills.

This event was a huge success.  We had great attendance by both Carleton students and industry and academic mentors.  We saw a lot of networking happening during the breaks between talks, and the three speakers were amazing.



Best of all, I didn't even have to organize the event - four amazing Executives and Officers did it all! I got to play event photographer instead. ;)  You can see more photos from the event on Flickr.

The Speakers

Moyra McDill, a professor in engineering at Carleton, spoke about her experiences being the first woman to graduate with a degree from Mechanical Engineering at Carleton.  She told us about the "life rocks" philosophy.  She started with an empty measuring cup and added large rocks representing the most important things in her life, like family.  She then added smaller rocks into the spaces, sand in the remaining spaces, and water after all of that.  The point was that it's amazing how much you can fit into your life; just start with the big rocks, because you can't put those in after the sand/water/small stuff is already in there.



Next up was Andrew Moizer with an enthusiastic message about self-confidence and some tips on negotiation.  He encouraged everyone to step out of their comfort zone often.  I personally enjoyed his story very much, as he went from a big-wig in high tech to an entrepreneur with his own cattle farm. Talk about outside the comfort zone! What's really cool is his farm and cafe are in a small town my family and I visit frequently (it's on the other side of us from Ottawa).  I'm looking forward to visiting his and his wife's cafe soon.



Finally, by chance, a friend of mine was our last speaker.  Louise Grace came on behalf of Dress for Success Ottawa, whose mission is "to promote the economic independence of disadvantaged women by providing professional attire, a network of support and the career development tools to help women thrive in work and in life."  She told us about what Dress for Success does and then gave us tips on making the best first impression possible.  Her fashion advice was practical and reasonable, which I always appreciate, being someone who isn't all that into clothes.  I will always remember to check my shoes for salt stains before an important meeting or interview now thanks to Louise. ;)

National Conference on Women in Engineering

This past month I had the pleasure of attending the National Conference on Women in Engineering as a delegate representing Carleton University. This weekend long conference was hosted by the University of Ottawa and was inspired by the theme of ‘Expanding Horizons’. The aim of the weekend was to celebrate the accomplishments and achievements of women in the male dominated field of engineering, as well as to better understand and be prepared for the challenges that women face in the workforce. The conference was an inspiring way for a young female engineering student to spend the weekend and included keynote speakers, breakout sessions, a banquet, and networking opportunities.

I believe that most of the delegates will agree with me when I say that the highlight of the conference was listening to the experiences of the keynote speakers. Each speaker left a lasting impression through their personal story and words of wisdom. I would like to share some of the key takeaways from the speakers which helped them to become the successful women they are today:

- Recognize opportunities to demonstrate leadership
- Seek out people who think differently than you
- Set a goal – evaluate the tools you will need to attain it
- Be prepared – manage risk, commit, speak with credibility
- Don’t be afraid to change course based on your experiences
- Accept that you cannot control everything
- Be involved in your community

While at the conference, delegates had the opportunity to network with students from other universities from all across Canada (coast to coast!) This was a great way to talk about their respective engineering societies and to share ideas about how to increase the involvement and enrolment of women within engineering.

This conference made me feel very proud to be a woman in engineering. I can say with great certainty that NCWIE brought together future leaders of the engineering community and I am very hopeful for the opportunities which lie ahead for each and every one of these delegates.

Go ENG Girl

This past weekend I had a chance to share my passion for engineering when Go ENG Girl took place at Carleton University on Saturday October 16th. Go ENG Girl is hosted every year at universities across Ontario as an opportunity for girls in Grades 7-10 to learn more about the field of engineering.
The day started off with a welcome and keynote speakers. Students and their parents heard from women studying and practicing engineering and learned more about what it meant to be an engineer. The girls were introduced to the many types of engineering and the opportunities that could arise within the different fields.

While parents heard from a panel of speakers about such things as entrance requirements, academic support, campus life, and career expectations, the students headed off to participate in a hands-on activity.

The grade 7-8 students were given a small design project involving snap circuits. They were asked to create a morse code generator and were then given the freedom to create their own circuits. One group created a lie detector test in which the ‘liar’ would answer a question and then would be required to place their index finger and thumb at a given location on the circuit, which would then detect if they were in fact telling the truth. The detector would hum if they were telling the truth and would make a loud high pitched sound and flash a light if a lie was being told. The circuit detected a ‘lie’ if there was enough moisture on the finger or thumb from nerves and sweat. I have included a picture of this particular circuit. The grade 9-10 students had a chance to use their design solution skills as they were asked to create a catapult which would launch a small mass the greatest distance while having a cost effective design with minimal materials. The projects were presented to the parents and it was clear that there were some future engineers among us!

Students and their parents were given a pizza lunch while being able to browse engineering exhibits and speak with current students. Lunch was followed by an engineering lab tour where some of Carleton’s engineering and research and project labs could be seen.

Go ENG Girl was measured a success when the girls whose parents had ‘forced them to come’ had declared that they would be returning next year and had become interested and excited about engineering. It was very rewarding to volunteer at an event where I could help answer student’s questions and be a representative for my field of study.

I strongly encourage prospective students to seek out opportunities to learn more about their educational interests – it is never too early to start! I also encourage current students to find ways in which to become involved in sharing their experiences and passions – it is never too late to start!

GHC10: Dancing with Hundreds of Technical Women at Grace Hopper

From the Communications of ACM blog:

When I tell someone about the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, I start by explaining the dance parties. I tell them, “You wouldn’t think that an all-female dance would be fun… but you’d be wrong. There’s nothing like dancing with hundreds of technical women who let loose because there’s nobody around to feel stupid in front of.”

Read the rest here.

GHC10: The Impact of the Grace Hopper Celebration

In addition to my own blog, I'm writing a few posts for the Communications of ACM blog about the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing.

From my first post:

This year's edition of the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing is officially underway, and you can almost taste the excitement. Last night I had the opportunity to speak with an external evaluator about my experiences with the conference in an effort to determine what kind of impact it really has. I quite enjoyed the opportunity to reflect on my role this year and the previous two years I’ve attended.

Read the rest of the post on CACM.

Gearing Up for Grace Hopper

This year's Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing is just around the corner, and I'm super excited to head down to Atlanta tomorrow to soak it all in once again! We have five CU-WISE members attending this time from a range of backgrounds, including engineering, computer science, and even math. We'll all be blogging here or on our personal blogs, so keep your eye out for our reports on the fun stuff we do in Atlanta and the informative and inspirational sessions we attend at the conference.

There are a couple of posts from my blog that I want to share. First, I wrote up my list of things I do to get ready for a conference. I did this with Grace Hopper in mind, but if you're thinking of heading to any conference soon, you should find it useful.

Second, I wrote about my personal networking goals:

A great way to gear up for the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing is to decide what your goals are for when you get there. This year, for the first time, I actually have some specific types of people I want to meet, so this is what I'm going to focus on.

It's really important to figure out what you want to get out of a conference like Grace Hopper before leaving, because it's a whirlwind of activity once you get there. There's little time for figuring these things out on the fly.

In addition to CU-WISE bloggers, you can enjoy Grace Hopper from afar via the official community blog feed (check back often though, since only the most recent posts show up!), and find out about many sessions on the notes wiki.

Ontario Celebration of Women in Computing

Have you heard about the upcoming Ontario Celebration of Women in Computing (ONCWIC), being held in Kingston by Queen's University October 22 and 23? It's a great opportunity for those of us who can't make it to Grace Hopper (and even those who do!), and let me tell you - it's a smoking deal.

Here's what it's all about:

The goal of ONCWIC is to allow students, faculty and professional women in Ontario to experience the opportunities for networking, sharing and mentoring that is unique to GHC. We recognize that attending the GHC is not an option for many women and the regional celebrations offer a comparable, low-cost alternative.

If you head over the registration page, you might notice that students pay just $25 and that includes shared accommodations in the hotel. Awesome!!

I'm thinking of putting in a poster before the September 30 deadline. I have heard there are prizes.

Whether you want to do a poster or talk or not, this conference will be awesome. If you're interested in going and might want to share a room with other CU-WISE girls, email wise@carleton.ca and let us know!

GirlGeek Dinners Ottawa - May 2010: OpenAgile with Ellen Grove

This is a guest post written by CU-WISE Officer Laura Mutu.

I heard about the Girl Geek Dinners during the school year from a few ladies involved with the WISE Carleton group. I found the meetings pretty neat, so I decided to attend someday.

Having just finished my 3rd year of Communications Engineering, I have been busy keeping up withschool work and such. Thus, I found myself at work in May receiving yet another Girl Geek Dinner notification. And yet again, I went to check my calendar full of hope. And yay!!

I could actually attend the next meeting on OpenAgile by Elen Grove. That sounded pretty good especially since I had heard a few things about Agile, and this seemed like a great opportunity to put the bits and pieces together.

I marked the date and noticing the the student offer was still on, I applied right away. Having received my confirmation, I remained enthusiastic while waiting impatiently for the day of the event to arrive.

Fortunately, on one hand, time had gone away pretty fast until the day of the event came. Unfortunately on the other hand, none of the CU-WISE girls could show up.

Arriving at the Johnny Farina place downtown, I found an open and welcoming group which made me more enthusiastic. Then, I picked a seating spot at random, finally ending up next to a lady I have met previously through my extra-curricular activities. It was nice to see a known face, and even nicer to meet new ones, I found all participants to be really great and I appreciated all the different topics touched upon in the conversations, which varied from nutrition to sports.

And... the speaker’s time! I found the presentation engaging through all the activities we had going, and the speaker interactive as she was guiding us thorough the agile technique.
More details on the Agile technique itself discussed during the meeting:

http://girlgeekdinnersottawa.com/blog/2010/05/27/may-25th-ggd-ottawa-event-recap/

After the presentation, there were quite a few prizes given out. So, if the presenters or the sheer bonding experience don’t motivate you to come to one of the meetings, the prizes sure should!

In the end, we spent some more time networking and eating some good food, before heading out. Just to make my day complete, ‘my’ bus had a stop right in front of the restaurant.

I greatly enjoyed my time and recommend you to attend one of the meetings or join a lady attending :).

Building Your Professional Network: lessons from a workshop with Donna Messer

This blog post is written by Carleton students Catherine Campbell (Master of Design – Industrial Design) and Salia Mirbaha (Master of Applied Science – Electrical Engineering, CU-WISE Financial Executive).

On Thursday we gave ourselves a treat. Taking a day off from collaborative design thesis writing and optoelectronic sensor research, we attended a FREE networking workshop offered by MITACS to graduate students. This half-day workshop was hosted at Carleton University in Ottawa and attended by students in a wide variety of disciplines from universities in Ottawa and surrounding areas. We came from two different perspectives to networking: one, feeling they had no great problem conversing with people… when the opportunity presented itself, having the tendency to take a passive approach to the activity; the other, acknowledging networking as a personal challenge; finding it quite hard to initiate a conversation in networking situations. Perhaps both of us were defaulting to the basics of Canadian social behaviour: being polite and not ‘bothering’ anyone. In previous networking situations, unless a deeper connection was made in the first few minutes of conversation (and a business card is voluntarily passed) a possible networking opportunity could and would easily turn into two boats passing in the night. Based on the lessons learned in Donna Messer’s fast paced, hands on, networking workshop, our approach is forever changed. The easy chatting between participants that quickly ensued after the workshop is evidence that many others felt the same.

There were many important lessons learned in this half-day workshop that will change the way we network, but three stood out as important mental shifts that needed to be made (and fast). The remainder of this article focuses on our lessons learned as a way of providing insight into the skills developed by participants in Donna’s networking workshop.


1. “It’s not about me, it is about we”

Why bother networking? Because in our society, getting a job is “not about what you know, but who you know”. So how do you get employed? The first step is to stop thinking about who you are and what you need (i.e. a job) and start thinking about who you know and how you can work together. Obviously when you first meet someone, they need to know a little bit about you and your interests (name, education, industry you are working in), but no one loves anything more than talking about themselves…so ask! And then think if you know anyone who might be a useful connection to them. Why? Because this way you have an opportunity to make a connection. Give first, …and you will receive sooner or later. Consider it an investment.


2. Finding something in common

In the workshop, Donna gave each person a playing card. Then she asked participants what relation they could find between their card and that of the person sitting beside them. What does the nine of spades have in common with the queen of diamonds? …pointy shaped suits? Sure, why not! Once we opened up our minds, it was amazing how everyone could relate their cards together. How about the four of hearts and the five of diamonds? …Same color! It sounded hard in the beginning, but then it started to feel like finding something in common should not be as hard as we thought. Finding something in common allows you to make a connection with the other person. When you connect with that person, you also have an opportunity to access their network and get introduced to people who might help you with your goals. Donna explained the importance of using professional networking tools including LinkedIn, personal websites and blogs. She helped us feel more comfortable asking for information and getting connected, using these tools to build our own networks. Now, both of us have the playing card in our purse and it reminds us of Donna’s workshop and the tools we have to make connections.


3. Building your professional network.

How do you explain what you do in simple terms? It’s easy to use a professional title, say “engineer” but today that could mean almost anything. Terms like ‘human factors’ and ‘design research’ or ‘optical networks’ are generally met with ‘what is that’? It is important to offer easy to understand and practical applications of your work and interests. What that relates to in your mind, and what it relates to in the mind of the person you are speaking with, may be quite different. It is important to keep an open mind. When someone offers a contact they think might be of common interest – never say no – even if you don’t immediately see a connection. Say thank you, take the time to investigate, and you are likely to be pleasantly surprised.

This is just a sample of the useful lessons we learned during Donna Messer’s networking workshop. If you attend one of her workshops, you are guaranteed to learn many more, develop the confidence to actively peruse networking opportunities in the future, and build your own personal network before the day is done. Donna is professional, energetic, and very knowledgeable, providing practical illustrations from personal experience. Overall, we found the workshop extremely valuable and recommend it to all graduate students.

Thank you Donna!

CRA-W Grad Cohort 2010

I was lucky enough to be able to attend this year's Grad Cohort organized by CRA-W, the Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research, with CU-WISE Officer Svetlana and member Shruti. We were even luckier to be able to work in some sight seeing before and after the conference as well - it was held in Seattle, so we went to Vancouver first.

All three of us learned a lot at the many informative talks. I met up with some people I knew from last year's Grad Cohort, and networked with some new folks as well. Definitely well worth the time to attend.

Here are some articles I posted on my own blog that summarize the talks we saw. I'm including those from last year, as well, since I think all of the topics are of interest.

• PhD Academic Career Paths
• Being a Woman in Technology
• Balancing Graduate School and Life
• Presentation Skills
• Finding a Research Topic
• Tips for Finishing Your PhD
  

The Art of Networking

An excerpt from my blog:

Networking really isn't just about passing your business card to someone. It is about making connections, that can be based on similarities. Donna based the art of networking on a very simple fact - we all like people that are like us.

Click here to continue reading about the basics of the art of networking that I picked up from a workshop "Effective Networking" conducted by Donna Messer in conjuction with MITACS at Carleton University. 

How the WISE Steps to Success event came to be - Part 2

Barbara posted earlier this month on "How the WISE Steps to Success event came to be" and I just wanted to add some comments from my perspective.

I had attended quite a few workshops, network events, and career fairs put on by Carleton's Career Development and utilized some of their other services such as resume reviewing and mock interviews. For those of you that have not taken advantage of these, I urge you to do so, they are usually a fun break from school and very useful. Also, if you aren't aware, you maintain free access to these services as alumni, which is awesome. Again, I'd encourage everyone to start attending these events before you graduate though as there are far fewer services offered during the summer and you want to transition into the working world with full confidence in your professional skills.

As I was saying, I had taken part in a lot of these events, but found there was something missing. I often felt like I could use some more specific advice for my discipline of engineering and for being a woman in a male dominated field.

In terms of the gender issue, as an example, I feel like I'm in a different position than my male counterparts when it comes to networking. At a workshop I attended on networking, we were advised to first take a tour of the room to subtly see who was there and who you wanted to meet. However, when I go to an event in my field, I walk into the room and notice immediately that there are only one or two other women in the room and the rest are men. This can be quite intimidating and make you feel self-conscious. It seems like it would be very hard to walk around the room without other people noticing. I know there must be ways to turn this to an advantage, and those are the kinds of tips I was looking for.

Other workshops I'd attended did not have enough time to be customized to each attendee's background. For instance, when it comes to negotiating your salary, someone with a science or engineering degree is in a very different position than someone with a different degree and there are huge differences in starting salaries within the science and engineering disciplines. Furthermore, I was unsure of how a graduate degree should impact my salary expectations.

I had attended a salary negotiation seminar by APEGBC for women in engineering during my undergrad at UBC, and this addressed a lot of issues that I think are important. Woman continue to be underpaid on average as compared to their male equivalents in the engineering fields. I think this is ridiculous nowadays, but I don't believe it is generally intentional or due to discrimination. My understanding of the issue is that women (on average) take a less aggressive approach to negotiating their starting salary and this sets them on a lower course throughout their career. Of course there are other issues that come into play later on, such as taking time off for maternity leave or choosing not to pursue higher paying, more time consuming position, but in terms of entrance salaries fresh out of school, I see no reason why women and men shouldn't be earning equivalent salaries.

So I felt that Carleton could use an event similar to the one I had attended in my undergrad to address these issues. I feel it's important for WISE Carleton members to learn about how to be assertive in the professional world, have confidence in themselves, and earn what they deserve. That's why I approached career services and helped get the ball rolling for what culminated in the WISE Steps to Success event two weeks ago.

I hope those of you that attended enjoyed the event and that all of you make use of the career services offered at Carleton and elsewhere.

What Toastmasters Can Do For You

This is a guest post by Shirley McKey, ISSNet Director of Operations at the School of Computer Science. I spoke with her recently about her involvement with Toastmasters, and could tell how enthusiastic she was about it. CU-WISE members hoping to gain leadership and communication skills, and get more opportunities to network, should definitely check it out!

I have been a member of Toastmasters since 2003 and am convinced that you will flourish as a communicator and a leader if you follow the program provided by this international organization. The communication and leadership program offered through Toastmasters provides outstanding and economical professional development.

Carleton Toastmasters meets every Wednesday at 6:55 p.m. in 3324 Mackenzie Building on the Carleton Campus. Please join us to learn how you can use this proven program of professional development to enhance your communication and leadership skills and gain confidence in yourself and your abilities.

Toastmasters International is a world leader in helping people become more competent and comfortable in front of an audience. The nonprofit organization now has nearly 250,000 members in more than 12,500 clubs in 106 countries, offering a proven – and enjoyable – way to practice and hone communication and leadership skills.

Most Toastmasters meetings are comprised of approximately 20 people who meet weekly for an hour or two. Participants practice and learn skills by filling a meeting role, ranging from giving a prepared speech or an impromptu one to serving as timer, evaluator or grammarian. There is no instructor; instead, each speech and meeting is critiqued by a member in a positive manner, focusing on what was done right and what could be improved. Good communicators tend to be good leaders.

For more information, please e-mail guests@carleton.freetoasthost.info or visit www.carletontm.ca (Carleton Club), www.tm61.org (District 61) or www.toastmasters.org (Toastmasters International). We look forward to seeing you.

A Night of Tips, Treats, and Revelations

On Tuesday night Carleton's Porter Hall was transformed into an elegant meeting space for young minds to mingle and learn how to thrive outside of the classroom at the WISE Steps to Success event. The white tables slowly gathered the often shy audience, providing treats for snacking and food for thought.

Many excellent points where brought up by the experienced mentors and guests who generously volunteered their time for the event. We were once again reminded of the importance of self-presentation to make that crucial first impression. Teresa and Terry Lee McCarthy of the Image Solutions Group shared their expertise on dressing and grooming for a business meeting. For a credible, formal business look wear a blue suit with the hair pulled back and just enough make-up to accentuate your best features. Invest in a good briefcase and a comfortable pair of closed-toe pumps. And, of course, don't forget to smile.

As important as your image is for leaving positive impressions and making connections, you can't go far without hard work as Dieter Hollweck was quick to emphasize. To advance in your career you have to be good at what you do and that takes work. Of this the Ambassador of Croatia, Vesela Mrdjen Korac, one of Dieter's guests, was an excellent example. She arguably stole the show and impressed many a young lady in the audience with her incredible career achievement and eloquent speech.

Pierre Lemasson addressed a rather important but sticky issue of salary negotiations. You might not know it, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with negotiating you salary once you get that coveted job offer. The trick, however, is not to think of it as a competition with the employer, but rather as a respectful discussion and to be aware of your fair worth.

The most important revelation of the evening for me, however, was a subtle yet extremely important point that Dieter brought up about networking. It's not a secret that you have to prepare for meetings and interviews. But more important, perhaps, then doing your background research is figuring out what your goals, values and aspirations are! Before you can effectively present yourself to others you need to know yourself and what you want!

It was delightful to see that by the end of the evening so many people were mingling among themselves and the mentors taking the opportunity to apply what they have learned about networking in a comfortable relaxed atmosphere created at the event. I hope that Steps to Success will become a yearly tradition of WISE and many more people will get the opportunity to benefit from the experience of the excellent speakers and mentors that WISE brought together.

Networking is Key

From my personal blog:

Time and time again I find that networking truly is the key to a successful career. It's amazing what kind of opportunities arise because of who you know.

During my undergrad years, I never thought that getting a job would have so much to do with your network. Whether you know someone who works at a place you want to be hired, or just introduce yourself at a job fair, your chances of working there are so much higher. For example, my husband has always been hired through his network. In fact, when he got laid off, his contacts on LinkedIn noticed, and asked him to work with them right away. He's still there now.

Read the rest to find out more on why networking is key.