Help me with some topics and activities for a seminar mentoring women in tech [Archive]

View Full Version : Help me with some topics and activities for a seminar mentoring women in tech

tarahmarie

July 18th, 2012, 12:35 PM

Hi, all!

My name is Tarah Wheeler Van Vlack; I've been posting here for some time--mostly when I need hardware help, since I'm a web dev ;-)

If you folks haven't already stumbled across it, I'm one of the LadyCoders running the Get Hired seminar for 40 women in Seattle in October. Sometimes, women are not very good at communicating with men in interviews, and we are going to provide some education and mentorship for these ladies, as well as filming the whole thing as a training DVD.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/166494057/ladycoders-get-hired-seattle-2012

Liz and Lorraine use Macs; I'm the Kubuntu devotee in the group. It is certain that my desktop will be shown more than theirs on our DVD, if theirs are shown at all. See, we have no worries about whether showing a Kubuntu desktop on a widely released DVD will constitute a problem with intellectual property. One of the exercises will involve these ladies finding projects to work on in order to beef up their resumes, and I would like to take this chance to pay a little back to the community that makes my OS. I specifically would like some suggestions for Github-hosted projects that are devoted to improving Kubuntu and KDE. I may have some converts during this seminar, and I'd like to give them some direction towards the best projects for them to contribute to.

NOTE: I originally posted this in Education and moved it here.

CharlesA

July 18th, 2012, 02:44 PM

Hi,

I don't use KDE, but I did find a link on how to contribute to Kubuntu:

http://www.kubuntu.org/community/contribute

Sidenote: I have heard of your project before and best of luck with it!

thatguruguy

July 18th, 2012, 03:04 PM

tarahmarie

July 18th, 2012, 11:10 PM

Calligra (http://www.calligra.org/), the new office suite for KDE desktops, could definitely use some help. The Calligra team even offers their own mentoring program (http://www.calligra-suite.org/contribute/calligra-academy/) for people who are interested in contributing.

Really? That is AWESOME, and exactly the kind of suggestion I was looking for. One of the things we're going to be suggesting to these ladies is how to handle career breaks; when you are a contributor to a major OSS project, any concerns about whether a woman is 'committed to her career' start to fade away.

Calligra is beautiful, and I'd love to have a solid alternative to OO.

PS: Like I said--you guys are my people over here, but I've posted as a noob on Reddit about this too. I'd love it if any of you *buntu folks would come help me out in the scary world of alt posting.

http://redd.it/ws43p

tarahmarie

July 18th, 2012, 11:14 PM

Also, I have been instructed to tell you all that Liz has an Ubuntu AND a Mint box at home. [but she TOTALLY hauls her Mac everywhere and uses it all the time. /snerk]

tanglisha

July 18th, 2012, 11:20 PM

I will admit that I adore my MacBook, but I'd never use it as a server.

I've been using Ubuntu since Dapper Drake, I think I still have an old laptop that's still not been upgraded from it because the battery died :)

Edit: According to my flair, it was Breezy Badger. Maybe I *am* a hipster.

tarahmarie

July 18th, 2012, 11:23 PM

I will admit that I adore my MacBook...

iFangirl.

tanglisha

July 18th, 2012, 11:25 PM

iFangirl.

:p

My main usage programs are Emacs, Terminal and Chrome. Oh, which IDE did you say you used?

tarahmarie

July 18th, 2012, 11:29 PM

:p

My main usage programs are Emacs and Chrome. Oh, which IDE did you say you used?

Eclipse. In which I dev for Android and do java executables. Punk. Besides, I spend most of my time in Konsole using nano anyway. You have to use a standalone app to code? Pffffft.

No, but seriously folks, this is what the ladies at our seminar get to hear us argue over ;-)

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/166494057/ladycoders-get-hired-seattle-2012

BigCityCat

July 19th, 2012, 12:38 AM

tarahmarie

July 19th, 2012, 12:45 AM

You should show them how easy it is to break into their email and facebook accounts. Show them what kind of damage can be done. Teach them how to do online banking with a live cd. Show them how to use keepass to create a stong passwords. Show them how to protect that password file in a truecrypt container and store it so it can never be lost and do it all for free.

That's great instruction for a lot of people, but this is a seminar training female software developers how to do well in interviews. These ladies already write code; I would hate to patronize them by including instructions on how to secure their FB accounts. You're absolutely right about recommending Keepass, though--it's what I use too.

Mostly what I'm looking for here is suggestions on which packages and Github projects relating to Kubuntu would benefit from volunteers, and also some help on our Reddit post. We're already getting downvoted by idiots who think women don't belong in tech.

JDShu

July 19th, 2012, 01:07 AM

tarahmarie

July 19th, 2012, 06:40 AM

You probably already know about it, but GNOME has a mentorship program specifically for women. From the looks of it, it's been pretty successful.

https://live.gnome.org/GnomeWomen/OutreachProgram2012

I took a look, but it seems to me like you're promoting GNOME, here. I can't support promoting a gateway drug to defenseless women just trying to get a tech job.

But seriously folks: I wanted to help out with Kubuntu because I know it better, and because we'll have Kubuntu images and desktops being distributed on film. GNOME is ok, but none of us will be using it during the seminar.

JDShu

July 19th, 2012, 07:26 AM

I took a look, but it seems to me like you're promoting GNOME, here. I can't support promoting a gateway drug to defenseless women just trying to get a tech job.

But seriously folks: I wanted to help out with Kubuntu because I know it better, and because we'll have Kubuntu images and desktops being distributed on film. GNOME is ok, but none of us will be using it during the seminar.

uh, I'm not really promoting GNOME especially, I just thought that this is a very relevant and worthwhile program for women who are interested in a career in tech.

I really respect what you are doing, but can I suggest that the issue of women being underrepresented in the tech field is far above squabbles about which Linux desktop environment is better?

nothingspecial

July 19th, 2012, 07:31 AM

The question is

I specifically would like some suggestions for Github-hosted projects that are devoted to improving Kubuntu and KDE.

Let's keep it on topic please.

tarahmarie

July 19th, 2012, 09:16 AM

I really respect what you are doing, but can I suggest that the issue of women being underrepresented in the tech field is far above squabbles about which Linux desktop environment is better?

I know that; if you hadn't read all of this thread, you might not have seen that we're engaged in a couple of joking debates along with looking for suggestions.

I've been dealing with people all day long who are telling me that women don't belong in technology, that it's a boys club for a reason, to GTFO of the tech workplace, that our project will fail, that I'm an idiot--etc, etc. It's the usual internet fun that happens when women try to help other women succeed at tech careers or open their mouths to say that there's something wrong with the current state of affairs and that we should do something about it.

Look, I'm just a geek, ok? All I really want to be doing right now **IS** to be arguing about the relative benefits of GNOME vs KDE, and that's the whole point of the joke I was making. I don't **WANT** to be fighting to help women succeed; I want to have the problem already solved so that I can go back to figuring out why my PulseAudio settings always get reset when I open Skype in Kubuntu.

But like Shepherd Book said before he was so rudely interrupted by Reavers, "If you can't do something smart, do something right."