Your resume is beautiful, readable, and within the limit. You have polished that resume until it shines so bright it blinds you with your dazzling achievements. You’ve been to countless career fairs where you’ve continually broken through your introverted + imposter syndrome tendencies to talk to the engineers + recruiters and convince them that they…More
Finding Community @Tech Intersections
Finding spaces where you feel welcome and understood can be hard for many of us. We come from a diverse set of experiences and at times that can make it really hard to relate to others which can lead to the feeling of being an outsider. I spent the first two years at Stanford feeling…More
The Importance of Normalizing “Failure” and Looking Back – The Path to Stanford
Okay, get comfortable because I can tell this is going to be a long post. Three years ago… I was a first year at Stanford. I transferred in after attending many community colleges (a class here, a class there, or many failed attempts of trying to go back to school). The years leading up to…More
Transferring to Stanford Q&A – A student’s perspective
Hi! If you’re here because of this tweet, welcome! Feel free to read more about me in the About page but a brief intro: I’m a senior at Stanford University majoring in CS in the AI track. I’m also a transfer student (transferred from a Cañada Community College). I’m Latinx, first-gen, and nontraditional (over 25)…More
Write/Speak/Code a Latinx In Tech Awakening
I’ve been floundering for the last x years. When I was growing up I kinda knew I was smart. But no one ever said this explicitly. I stole bits and pieces of this information from quick glances at transcripts that said Highly Gifted, at the comments that some teachers made about my “potential”. But no…More
A Conversation with Ellen K. Pao, tech investor and advocate, the former CEO of reddit, and a cofounder of the award-winning diversity and inclusion nonprofit Project Include
A few weeks ago I attended Write/Speak/Code, a non-profit dedicated to promote the visibility and leadership of technologists with marginalized genders through peer-led professional development that hosts an annual conference and meetup events designed to help you fully own your expertise through writing, speaking, and open source. That’s a mouthful but they live by every word…More
First Timer’s Guide to Grace Hopper #GHC19 A Non-Brief Interjection #LatinxInAI
Welcome back! Continuing with my First Timer’s Guide to Grace Hopper series. Make sure you read Part 1 of the series. Celebrating #LatinxInAI News: You know how when things go wrong we blame ourselves and when things go right we tend to minimize it and say things like, “no problem!”, “it was nothing!”, etc.? This type of…More
First Timer’s Guide to Grace Hopper #Newbie #GHC19 Part 1 of Series
After applying to attend Grace Hopper three years in a row, Stanford sponsored me along with other fellow Computer Science undergrads + masters (majority) to attend GHC19! Today is the LAST DAY 😭 and while I rest my poor feet 👣 before the closing celebration 💃🏻I thought I’d share my experience so far (while the impressions are still fresh…More
This Latina’s non-traditional path to tech: Part 0
I’m Susana, mom to 3 amazing daughters, Latina in tech with much to say. I left a lucrative job in legal business development to pursue my undergrad computer science degree full time at Stanford. Why you ask? Some may say I am a masochist but I say I am a life long learner that wanted…More
Where I’ve Been + 1st day Senior year @Stanford
First, I’ve been super inconsistent with posting. I’d been taking several intensive creative writing classes at school and all of my efforts was poured into those courses. But happy to get back to writing. You will see a shift on what I write about, I will still share my experiences but I will also start…More
Susana Benavidez 