By Hannah Frazier

   On Nov. 16, four of TPA’s female coding club members attended the “Girls Get IT” event for women in STEM. The event, hosted by Mesa Community College, took place at Delta Hotels by Marriott. 

   Senior Nishat Ahmed and Juniors Alex Genchev, Mendbayar Bayasgalan and Jenna Carter-Easton attended and were accompanied by coding club sponsor Ms. Richards. At the event, the girls listened to guest speakers who shared their journeys as professionals in STEM and supported women’s involvement in these fields. One of these speakers was Fredi Lajvardi, a sponsor to many robotics teams.One of them, at Carl Hayden Community High School in Phoenix,  built a robot that beat MIT’s robot in a competition in 2004 and had a movie made about it called “Spare Parts.”

   Many of these speakers were inspirational to Nishat. She says, “My favorite part of the event was being able to hear STEM stories from women all over Arizona. It encouraged me to keep pursuing STEM, knowing that I can get support every step of the way.”

   There were also workshops on various topics: nanotechnology, digital footprints, networking/AI, programming apps, augmented reality, green flag, gaming, web development, data center, cybersecurity, and robotics. These were particularly impactful for Alex, who says, “My favorite part was the workshops because it was really helpful with getting a snippet of what it would be like to have a career with that emphasis, so I could start honing where my interests actually lie.”

   After attending two workshops each, the students had a resource fair to connect with different colleges, suited to helping them achieve their personal goals. For example, Nishat hopes to pursue environmental engineering and Alex is currently interested in pursuing technology through computer science.