brittany cheng

Overview

• Visited high schools in Oakland/Berkeley area to present to students, encouraging girls to sign up for the Technovation Challenge, a biweekly after-school technology and business program for high school girls
• Collaborated with the graduate student instructor of the course to teach the curriculum of the program: programming, design, and business concepts
• Supported a team of five high school girls as they developed a mobile app prototype using Android App Inventor and created a business plan for their app

Preparation

To prepare for this role, I drew on my own experiences as a high school student. I thought back to the influences that drew me to my major in computer science: encouragement from my mother, who is also an engineer, as well as exposure to awesome applications of computer science, such as the magic behind graphics and animation. I sought to bring this same motivation to the girls that I interacted with, encouraging them that girls can code, too, and that coding is awesome.

Writing

I wrote a short article about how I got involved in the Technovation Challenge; you can read it here.

What I Learned

• Presentation and public speaking skills
• Curriculum development and basic pedagogy
• Mentorship and motivational skills