Nathan Hale High School Presentation, October 29th, 2009

Event Presentation date: October 29, 2009 Nathan Hale High School, Seattle, WA Hi All What a fantastic event we had today at Hale! What a great turnout and wonderful group of girls, and of course, amazing and special Presenters. The girls asked insightful questions and we could have spent another hour in discussion with all the great questions that they had. It always goes so quickly. One more magical IGNITE event!! Thank you to the wonderful speakers we had today. Thank you to Corey Weathers, Academic Developer, Evangelist, and Microsoft tekkie. Corey started working with us a few days ago and has already become an exceptional motivator for the girls to pursue technology careers. He tells us his story and shows the girls that there are so many wonderful opportunities that Microsoft has to offer. It is obvious; he loves his job and wants the girls to dream big. Thank you so much Corey for being here for the girls. Thank you to Claire O'Donnell, Paralegal, and Microsoft employee. Claire volunteers to inform the entire legal department at Microsoft of all IGNITE events, so that they can be a part of the program and she also comes and speaks for us. Claire shared her story and helped the girls understand that they could do anything if you put your mind to it. It's possible to have all sorts of interests and still work in a technology company. Claire was able to bring out so many of the interests of the girls and tie them back to what is possible in technology. Thank you for such a great job Claire, we are so happy to have you in IGNITE! Thank you to Christie Ong. IGNITE alumni, Roosevelt HS. Christie has so much to offer the girls; she went through IGNITE with me a just a few short years ago. It seems like yesterday she was a high school girl and now she is a college graduate off to do her Fulbright award in Italy in January. Christie is a great motivator for the girls, showing that you can work in technology with any interest that you have. And they will need technology and need to understand it to do just about anything. Thank you for such a great job and coming back to IGNITE. I also want to thank Christie for her job as my admin. She is helping me with all the tasks that I do each day in my office. Now I don't know what I will do without her. Thank you to Manh Duong, IGNITE Alumni, Ingraham HS. Manh has been in IGNITE since about 10th grade. Manh worked at Microsoft for about 5 years after HS and now is in financial services. She has been an IGNITE volunteer since she was in college. She has done so much for IGNITE all these years. It is great to have Manh talk to the girls and hear her encourage them to use the IGNITE program for so many things they can get out of it. Manh always did everything we had to offer and did the Microsoft High School internship for all her years in high school and then in college. She has so much to offer the young women by being the great role model that she is. We are so fortunate to have Manh with us all these years. Lucky!!! Thank you to Marta Smith, Software Tester Microsoft. Marta is a longtime volunteer for IGNITE. She has such a great story to help the girls understand that they should not take no for an answer. Just be persistent and they can get anywhere they want to go. She has been at Microsoft a long time and knows that technology careers are great for women. She conveys that very well to the girls. Thank you Marta! Thank you to Gina Nakamura, Seattle Central Community College Director of Outreach. Gina does such a great job in sharing all about grants and scholarships. I am convinced she is the guru of scholarship and grant information. She went through the system herself and has an IT degree using grants and scholarships. We are so fortunate to have Gina with us. She is such a great motivator in going to college and showing the girls there are so many ways to do it and money is not an obstacle. Gina is awesome! Thank you Trisha Barker, Graduate of Seattle Community College Web design program. Trisha has lead a team of students in rebuilding the IGNITE website over the last 4 months. She is coming to all of the ignite sessions to teach the girls all about using the new website, so when we launch the girls will know how to use it and be successful. Trisha has volunteered hundreds of hours working for IGNITE and we appreciate everything she does. The girls are all excited about the new website and all it will do. Thanks to Trisha who gets them motivated to use it. We are all very excited about the new website, and I can hardly wait. It is getting very close. Thank you to Shirley Osara, Support Staff, Hale High School. Shirley has been involved in IGNITE for many years at Sealth and now we have her at Hale HS. What a great job she does in recruiting the girls. It’s her love for IGNITE that comes through. She would do anything to help us and she does. Thank you Shirley for all you do for IGNITE; we are so fortunate to have you. Thank you to Jill Hudson, Principal Hale HS. Dr Hudson attended the IGNITE event today and really gave us a thumbs up. She was so supportive in making sure the girls knew we were coming. And she wanted them to have this opportunity. It is great to work with you, and thank you for all your support for IGNITE!! Thank you to the staff who helped us get the word out and helped the girls get to the events. Thank you to Janet Higgins, Cisco Teacher, Carolyn Terchoca, Graphic Arts and Jeff Jones, Head Counselor. Jeff made sure that the event got into the PTA newsletter too!! Thank you to Jessica Torvik, who let us use her room, and really mess it up. She did not mind at all. You were awesome. Now here are the girls’ comments from the evaluation forms. They always say it best. * I liked how every person that spoke really seemed to be trying to address every person in the room. The most interesting that I heard today was about the scholarships and internships at Microsoft. What you could do to make this event better is make sure everybody speaks a little louder. I had trouble hearing all but three people. The better you can hear people, the better you understand and can pay attention. I am looking forward to the Microsoft field trip. * It was very interesting hearing about it from your different people then just one. * I really like to hear information about the IGNITE. The most interesting thing that I heard today is that there's a lot of opportunities in IGNITE. I would like to see more information about IGNITE. * The speakers were very kind and informative. You can tell that they know what they are talking about and have been in our shoes. The scholarship for two years at SCCC was interesting. I thought it was good that there was a diverse group of speakers. I am interested in DigiGirlz and DigiPen programs in particular. * I like everything that you guys told us. That was a great conference and we appreciate that. I am real interested in engineering. I want to be part of you guys and I will talk with you. I like the part when the students were introducing themselves. I want to talk to you more and I will like to know everything that good for me or us. * I liked learning about all of the opportunities that I have for my future. That it is possible to go to a university for free and learn about all the grants and scholarships. I thought it was perfect. * Learning about the different scholarships and ways to get into this career path. Hearing about how the different people go into the careers they have today. It was good; there isn't anything I would change. I look forward to the field trips. * I learned how to pay for college. I also learned how to use the IGNITE. I heard that there a lot of things you can do at Microsoft. I would like to know about job shadowing. * I liked hearing the guest speakers talk because I liked hearing their stories. I'm really interested in going to M.I.T. and with the program; I think it will be very motivational. The most interesting thing I heard was that one woman gets paid to test out IM and texting related technology. * I thought it was great, I really couldn't do better. I think shadowing and looking at other careers would be good, you already do that. I am looking forward to it. Maybe we could do a hands-on tech/engineering project. * I learned about scholarships and how to pay for college. That the people are super cool!! I want to learn more about volunteering. * I liked the people with jobs in technical degrees. When they said that they graduated w/o debt it made me happy/gave me hope. That so many women were need in technical degrees. * I liked that they were varieties of technology careers. I also like that our mentors know what we are going through. I learned that you can get paid to IM your friends. I would like to go to DigiGirlz and field trips. * I liked that the information was clear and it encouraged me to look into technical careers. That IGNITE is free for everyone - not all of us can afford so it was nice to hear that we all have an opportunity. I look forward to Microsoft field trips. * I liked how they told how involved they are with their students and how they can support us throughout college. The most interesting thing I learned was scholarships. I think its fine the way it is presented. I really liked it. Microsoft field trips and work shadows. * I liked that I was able to learn about how many different types of technical jobs there are. It was also helpful to know about all the different programs there are to learn about technical jobs. I thought that learning about the website was helpful. I am interested in other IGNITE events but I am not sure which ones. * I liked learning about all the opportunities I have for scholarships. I also liked learning about each of the mentors. The most interesting was learning all the opportunities about scholarships. Everything was great. * I liked hearing the mentors present because I am undecided on the career I want to take and listening to their stories gave me an idea of what’s included in their tech jobs. I was very interested in the scholarships, and job shadowing along with internships. * I liked how Gina went into so much detail about the scholarships and running start. I found the fact that the mentors said that no matter what your passion is you can fit it in somehow with technology. I wanted to learn more. I want to talk with each of the mentors more too. * I liked hearing about each panelist’s job. It was interesting to hear about everyone's job. Speaking more loudly can make this event even better. * I really liked hearing the different perspectives I would like to learn more about what they do. * I appreciated the examples of gaining scholarships and advanced classes. I also liked having at least one guy talk as an expresses of female support. * IT careers don't necessarily mean being hunched over a computer in an office cubicle. I actually quite liked hearing about women who have gone through programs like Running Start and gotten scholarships. I also really appreciate the speaker from Seattle Center Community College. I want to learn more about the information about scholarships. * I like the scholarship because they could pay the half of the money for me. I look forward to the field trips. * I really liked the information about scholarships and Job Shadowing. I liked the speakers. * I liked getting all the information and really knowing what an engineer is like. The most interesting thing I heard today was how many scholarships you can get. It was perfect. * I learned new ways to get a free degree. I learned about the different ways an engineer learns and the different ways and skills of engineering. I never knew there were so many different engineering jobs. * I liked getting information about people who could help me. The most interesting things I learned was about all the different jobs you can have. It’s perfect. I would like to see a picnic. * I learned that even visually impaired people can have jobs in technology. I want to thank everyone who made this possible. You are all amazing people. Thank you all for your continued support. Sincerely, Cathi