The Bowdoin Orient

Under the tenure of former president Barry Mills, Bowdoin saw a substantial increase in the racial diversity of its student body. For the 2001-2002 school year, just 21 percent of Bowdoin students identified as a race other than white; this year, according to the College’s Common Data Set, that number was 37 percent.

The experiences of students of color at Bowdoin are varied and diverse, and cannot be explained by any statistic. At the same time, many students believe that recent conflicts—the “tequila” and “gangster” parties, Cracksgiving, racially-charged verbal attacks on students in town—highlight the College’s continued struggle to make Bowdoin a welcoming place for people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds.

“When all these things happened and people refused to understand why this hurts a lot, that’s when it got to me,” said Cesar Siguencia ’18, who identifies as Latino. “That’s when I realized my race started to become a problem on this campus.”

Skyler Lewis ’16, who identifies as black, said he is no longer surprised by racial issues on campus.  

“I’ve dealt with a whole bunch of stuff,” he said. “At first it used to really bother me, being called the n-word or someone saying some really stupid racist stuff, and eventually I just got to the point where I’ve come to expect it almost.”

Ryan Strange ’17, who identifies as black and biracial, noted that students of color have been more vocal about racial issues this year than in the past.

“There are a lot more students of color who are speaking out. And I guess that’s uncomfortable for some people,” he said.

But whether students of color speak out or stay quiet, their race nonetheless can impact their experiences throughout their time at Bowdoin.

Many students of color first saw the College through Explore Bowdoin or Bowdoin Experience, admissions programs that encourage low-income and first-generation students to apply and matriculate to Bowdoin. These programs have a greater representation of students of color than the actual student body.  

“The Experience and the Explore programs that I did, which I loved… helped me so much and I’m very appreciative because it got me to where I am now,” said Dylan Goodwill ’17, who identifies as Native American. “[But] it seemed so diverse when I came and then I was very surprised when I came and I was like, ‘It’s not as diverse as I thought.’”

Lewis voiced a similar sentiment.

“Both of the weekends that I came up seem like they’re more for minority students so you walk around campus and there are a whole bunch of minorities, especially during Experience weekend,” he said. “And you leave and you show up [for college] and you’re like, where’d everybody go?”

Victoria Yu

Raquel Santizo '19

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As students of color arrive on a campus that is less racially diverse than they had anticipated, many gravitate towards peers of similar racial and ethnic backgrounds. Affinity groups, such as the Asian Student Association (ASA), the Native American Student Organization (NASA), the Latin American Student Organization (LASO) and the African American Student Organization (Af-Am) provide one mechanism for students to connect with others who feel the same way.

“I think it’s natural to kind of gravitate towards people who are similar to you, especially culturally,” Lewis said. “And that doesn't have to be based on race but often times it is. I live in Coles Tower with three other black males....we have similar cultural backgrounds, we listen to the same stuff, we came from similar areas.”

Michelle Hong ’16, who was born in Texas to Korean parents and identifies as Asian-American, is the current co-president of ASA. She joined the group her sophomore year after realizing that she did not know many Asian students at Bowdoin.

“I joined ASA my sophomore year because I think I started wondering why I didn’t have any Asian-American friends at Bowdoin,” she said. “[I realized] there were parts of my identity that I was missing by doing what the majority of Bowdoin students do.”

Like Hong, many students of color struggled to find and maintain their racial and cultural identities as they adjusted to Bowdoin.

Goodwill, who is Sioux and Navajo, has found it difficult to preserve her cultural practices at the College. She also notices herself adjusting her language and behavior to fit in.

“I always knew I did code switching,” she said. “[But] I now notice it a lot more. I don’t talk in my normal slang or in my normal accent at all.”

Jenny Ibsen

Jeffrey Chung '16

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Jeffrey Chung ’16, who identifies as Chinese-American and is also co-president of ASA, noted that affinity groups can help create community among students with similar racial experiences.

“Michelle and I have been working a lot to change the identity of the club... to reflect more on the community and identity of the students within the club rather than promoting an image of ‘Asian culture’ to the rest of campus,” he said.

While affinity groups are a supportive environment for some students, options are more limited for students whose racial or ethnic identification is not shared by as many Bowdoin students.

Irfan Alam ’18, who identifies as South Asian and Muslim, wants to create a formal group for South Asian students to connect.

“We have a reasonable South Asian student population. I think like probably twenty-five,” he said. “We’re hoping to try to make an organization sort of like LASO, sort of like ASA,  Af-Am, things like that, but for South Asian students,” he said.

NASA currently has six members and no faculty adviser. Goodwill, one of its co-presidents, said such small numbers made it difficult for Native American students to respond to racial incidents on campus.

“Cracksgiving happened my first year here and I was so surprised that nothing was being done about it because I was really offended, but there was only me and two other girls on campus who were Native,” she said. “And they were like, well, this has been happening and like there’s only three of us, what can we do?”

Although some students find kinship befriending others of their same race or ethnicity, many students of color voiced concerns about racial segregation on campus.

“Maybe because it’s such a predominantly white institution, that people of color tend to stay together because they’re a part of the minority,” said Strange. “Maybe it’s on both sides...I guess people of color and also white people need to push ourselves to try to get to know people outside their own comfort zone.”

Dana Williams

Michelle Hong '16

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This division along racial lines has reached most aspects of Bowdoin social life. Several students of color said that race impacted their dating and hookup experiences on campus.

“Gay men of color most of the time are separate from gay white men,” said Strange. “I don’t know why that is.”

Chung, who grew up in New York City, found that the trope of Asian-Americans as perpetual foreigners created separation for him in Bowdoin’s relationship scene.

“It dawned upon me as I approached the hookup culture and as I approached the party scene here that I—however much as I could identify as an American—I still couldn’t completely fit in or I still couldn’t completely be seen as strictly the same,” he said.

Simone Rumph ’19, who primarily identifies as African-American but also Greek and Brazilian, added that Bowdoin’s dating and hookup scene made her worry about being exoticized because of her race.

“You can see it in the way people approach you. They don’t approach you in a way that other girls will be approached,” she said.

Many students notice that the parties hosted by College Houses and by affinity groups—both of which are open to the entire student body—tend to have different attendees.

“Af-Am, whenever they have parties, it’s usually people of color that go,” said Strange.

“I didn’t really process immediately that [when I] went into a College House party as a freshman I might be the only Asian person that I could see,” Chung said.

Racial divides at College Houses and other campus events lead some students of color to question whether Bowdoin’s campus is self-segregated. Strange noticed this phenomenon at some of the Bowdoin Student Government (BSG) hearings following the “tequila” party.

“After the meeting at BSG, I noticed how segregated it was,” he said. “People of color stood on one side and then there were all white people on the outside and it was just so interesting to me. I don’t know how or why that happened. And it happens in the classroom too, I notice. And I don’t know why.”

The impact of race is not limited to social groups or student government meetings. Instead, students of color say that race sometimes influences their academic experiences and their relationships with professors.

Many students expressed that the scarcity of students of color at Bowdoin places a burden on individuals to represent everyone of their racial background.

“Sometimes you feel like the class looks to you to act as a spokesperson for black students,” Lewis said.

Some students also worry that their personal behaviors might unintentionally reinforce or inscribe racial stereotypes at Bowdoin and beyond.

“I find that I do very well at academics here at Bowdoin, which is fine,” Chung said. “But I think that at the same time there’s this sort of lingering thought in my mind: Am I sort of just perpetuating the stereotype of the model minority? Like do my peers only think I’m doing well because I’m Asian or do they actually recognize all the work that I’m putting into academics?”

Darius Riley

Dylan Goodwill '17

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In addition to peer-to-peer interactions, race sometimes informs students’ interactions with faculty. While 37 percent of Bowdoin students identify as minorities, only 14 percent of faculty members do, according to the College’s Common Data Set.

“I try not to put race as a factor… [but] the professor that inspired me the most to date on this campus was a professor who identified herself as Latina,” Siguencia said. “Although she helped me so much in the field of study that I was in the class of, we talked so much about our experiences because it just correlated so much, saying that we understand the struggles that we’re facing because no one else here on this campus does.”

Student experiences with race and faculty are not always positive, however. Goodwill said she has encountered several instances of overt racism from professors.

“It was comments,” she said. “And one of them was last semester but then one of them was my freshman year. And being a freshman in your first-year seminar, and it’s your first time on campus it’s like how do you deal with that?”

Other students expressed that their families’ backgrounds—especially financial ones—have added pressure to succeed academically at Bowdoin. Siguencia said he feels he cannot become too involved in Bowdoin’s party or drinking scene because he fears his academics will suffer.

“What if—worst-case scenario—what if I were to fail? What do I have to fall back on?” he said.

Despite the importance of academics, several students commented that the burden of dealing with racial issues can be overwhelming and distracts them from their studies.

“It’s like you come to a place where you’re supposed to be safe and you’re supposed to be able to focus on your studies and you’re experiencing all of this other stuff as well, all this extra emotional baggage,” Hong said.

For many students, racially-charged campus events only added to this emotional labor. Several students expressed that they wished their professors would give greater acknowledgement to events like the “tequila” and “gangster” parties.

“You know that there are students on this campus who don’t even want to go to class because they’re so hurt by this,” said Hong.

“I am a student in your class [who] is clearly being affected by everything that’s going on,” added Raquel Santizo ’19, who identifies as Latin American, more specifically Peruvian.

While students did not expect their professors to coddle them, several said that they wished their professors would acknowledge the difficulty of the situations or facilitate discussions around them.

“My professors are fully capable of giving us not information, but facilitating thoughtful conversation the way they do in a normal class,” Alam said.

Even with the absence of faculty attention, Alam added that he felt campus discussions about race were worthwhile.

“Although [the “tequila” party] has caused a lot of tension and all these different things,  I do wholeheartedly believe that it created a lot of important dialogue,” he said. “I think that we should be able to do that without having it be prompted by incidents where people become upset or offended. So proactive engagement with these issues is important.”

Hong added that campus conversations make her more aware of racial issues in the outside world.

“I identify being a person of color more than I used to and I used to not group Asian-Americans in with people of color. And so now that I do I think I care more deeply about national issues that are going on, like the Black Lives Matter movement,” she said. “I think it would be easier to ignore if I didn’t identify as a student of color… I’m more present I guess for conversations about race than I was when I first got to Bowdoin.”

Racial issues still exist when students of color leave Bowdoin’s immediate campus. According to 2010 census data, the population of Brunswick is 93 percent white, a fact that can be jarring for students who grew up in racially diverse environments.

Santizo, who grew up in Los Angeles, noticed these demographics as she prepared to move in last fall.

“My mom said: ‘Raquel, I think you’re the only Hispanic girl in this whole state,’” she said.  

Alam noted that, while he had not personally encountered racism off campus, several female Muslim students had.

Off campus interactions serve as a reminder that, while the outside world may not discuss race as often as Bowdoin students do, racial issues nonetheless continue to play a role in the lives of students of color.

“When I graduate, part of it will be easier because I won’t be constantly faced everyday where we are so engaged and I’ll probably be able to just go about my daily life,” Hong said. “But I think once you’re conscious about race and you’re conscious about the implications of race you can’t really ever forget that.”

On a mission to lower the achievement gap that systematically keeps low-income and minority students off-track for entry to four-year colleges and prosperous careers, Bowdoin alum, JP Hernandez ’04, founded American Dream Clean. The company is both a commercial cleaning agency and a social enterprise company. It aims to provide its employees with the resources necessary to ensure that their children are able to graduate from a competitive college. 

Hernandez spent his time at Bowdoin as a Government and Legal Studies major and History minor, a two-sport athlete and a regular volunteer with children of all ages. He was a volunteer for the YMCA and worked with Breakthrough Collaborative, a summer program for highly motivated underserved middle and high school students that helps them on the path to college. It was during those experiences that Hernandez started noticing the challenges that low-income and minority students face academically. 

Hernandez noted that a college education can positively impact many aspects of a person’s life. “How happy you are with your life is very wrapped up in the whole thing. So to be able to be creating this path... it’s a beautiful thing,” Hernandez said in a video interview with the Orient. “It’s like winning a lottery ticket,” he added.  

Hernandez did not know he wanted to become involved in education immediately after leaving Bowdoin. Working as a paralegal and for a hedge fund called Bridgewater after graduation, he picked up many of the skills he would later use in founding his company. With the idea floating around in his head for 10 years, Hernandez hit a crossroads.

“Either you’re going to stay at Bridgewater forever or you’re going to do what you always intended to do,” he said.

In 2014, Hernandez founded American Dream Clean. The commercial cleaning company is committed to providing tutoring, mentoring and after school or summer school programs to the children of the people they employ.

According to Hernandez, the success of the business relies on the relationship and dedication that the tutors have with their students. 

Inspired by the company’s mission, Alana Luzzio ’17, decided to become a tutor with American Dream Clean this past year.

Although she had no previous experience in tutoring, she reached out to Hernandez over email and expressed her interest.

“I think that if more Bowdoin students knew about the program they would definitely be into being tutors,” said Luzzio

Luzzio spends time each week not only working closely with her students but also creating lessons plans and curriculums to best guide them towards success. She focuses on being able to connect with her students on a personal level. 

“I tutor once a week usually for an hour or an hour and half, but I always tell them if they need me they can text me, and I’m available anytime,” said Luzzio. “I’ll always pick up the phone.”While Hernandez acknowledged the importance of increasing test scores and grades, he also hopes that the kids can begin to relate to their tutors and visualize themselves as college students. 

Hernandez’s end goal is for the kids of all of his employees to be on track for college and future careers. He also hopes that more companies like his own become mission-driven. “You could take the best of what a business can do and what a nonprofit can do and put them together to something that’s greater than the sum of the parts,” said Hernandez.

Combining the driving missions of nonprofits with the global reach of businesses ensures widespread social impact. Because the cleaning industry, according to Hernandez, faces a 300 percent annual turnover rate in its employees, Hernandez believes he is able to retain his employees and remain a competitive force in the market because of his social enterprise model. “If you want to beat me, you have to find someone who is going to work harder for you,” said Hernandez.

He hopes that millennials will deviate from the standard set by older generations that encourages social change through a “learn, earn, return” model.   

“I’m seeing again and again that there is real genuine interest in, ‘How do I have a life of meaningful work from day one?’” said Hernandez.Hernandez has a message for students aspiring to make social change and achieve earnings in a capitalist world.

“Social enterprise is becoming a mainstream thing… it’s a different and better world,” he said. “I would encourage students who are wrestling with this problem that there’s hope.”

Students interested in getting involved with American Dream Clean can email Hernandez at JP.Hernandez@americandreamclean.com.

Silicon Valley is an attractive destination for any entrepreneurial-minded graduate, but breaking into the business can be difficult. Katrina Lake, who visited Bowdoin last weekend, has found a way. The CEO and founder of the fashion app Stitch Fix visited Bowdoin last weekend to discuss being a female leader in tech and business.

Stitch Fix is a unique approach to personal shopping. Five clothing items are selected for shipment every month using the help of professional stylists and Stitch Fix’s own algorithm that match each customer’s tastes. When a subscriber receives his or her box, he or she can choose either to purchase or return any of the items, and with the help of user feedback, the Stitch Fix algorithm becomes better at providing customers with satisfying products.

On Sunday in John Brown Russwurm African American House, Lake took part in a Q&A session with Associate Director of Career Planning Sherry Mason, where she shared with students her experience in breaking into the fashion business world and what her job as CEO entails. On Monday, Lake spoke at the Bowdoin Breakfast, a program targeted at local business and community members, which was followed by a “fireside chat” facilitated by President Clayton Rose. 

 In five short years since its creation, Lake has transformed Stitch Fix into a multimillion-dollar company that employs over 4,000 people. Throughout, she has been intentional about building a supportive and inspiring environment for her employees by creating and fostering a diverse work environment and making Stitch Fix a great place for women in particular to work and to lead.

“I care really deeply that there aren’t enough women in leadership,” said Lake, citing that only 15 percent of leaders in tech and 12 percent of leaders in retail are women. “[It] is really sad because these are companies selling cosmetics and apparel, and this is an industry where half of the people who are coming in are women.”

Lake considers herself lucky to have been able to create Stitch Fix. The idea for the brand emerged when Lake was attending Harvard Business School and looking for post-graduate jobs to apply for.

“I was trying to look for a company like the one that I would create to join…I felt like I could do super-interesting things with data and technology and retail,” she said.

At the time, most other retailers were working to get their products to people in the cheapest and fastest fashion. However, she figured that when it came to clothing, people did not just want what they could get cheapest and fastest—they wanted items that were best for their individual body type and made them feel most confident.

While she mostly focused on product testing in business school, Lake was also able to acquire the interest of her first investor, Steve Anderson, also one of the first investors in Twitter and Instagram. By the time she graduated from Harvard, Lake’s company was already up and running.

“That first year, we didn’t even have a website. We did everything through email, and we packed our own fixes in our tiny little office every single Monday. It didn’t matter if you were the CEO or the inventory planner; you were on the line getting fixes out the door. Getting the actual company off the ground was a lot of blood, sweat and tears, but in the end it was very rewarding,” said Lake.

Lake attributes much of her success in business not to her time as a graduate student at Harvard, but rather as a pre-med undergraduate at Stanford University.

“My undergrad was far more important and influential for my life,” she said. “It’s not necessarily what you learn in the classroom that you end up using in your job…I think so much more of it is that you’re surrounded by great people and you’re surrounded by engaging people and that you’re learning and loving learning, and you’re able to take that with you.”Lake, an advocate for liberal arts education, advised undergraduates to not just take classes that they think they need for their career, but also those that simply sound interesting. She also believes in taking this broad outlook towards education while searching for jobs and internships.

“I feel like there’s a lot of focus on, ‘This would be my dream job and this is how I would feel fulfilled in my life’…but the honest truth is what makes your job rewarding are things like, ‘Are you doing work for someone great who supports you and cares for you?’ and ‘Are you learning?’”

In the last five years, Stitch Fix has exceeded any expectation Lake had for what the company could be. At the same time, Lake still believes that there is more growth to come. “Everyday I see more and more of what we’re able to do, and I get a bigger vision for the company,” she said.

Searching through Bowdoin’s course catalog, you might have trouble finding classes in Socialization and Human Development, Bioethics or Native American Studies. However, in the past 30 years, students wishing to pursue a program that did not fit the pattern of an existing departmental major have proposed and completed courses of study like these. Since 1979, the College has authorized a student-designed major process in which a student can collaborate with two faculty members to develop a major program that draws on the offerings of at least two different departments.  

In the past 15 years, more student-designed majors have come from humanities departments. But according to Associate Dean of Academic Affairs James Higginbotham, there are plenty of opportunities from other departments.  

“They’re really all over the map… It bridges disciplines between the social sciences, the humanities, and the sciences,” said Higginbotham, who is also an associate professor in the classics department. 

Laura Griffee ’17 is one of only three student-designed majors on campus. Her major, Computing and Media Arts, combines the computer science and visual arts departments. Fellow junior Catherine Cyr has also declared a student-designed major combining history, art history, English and government into an overarching American Studies major. Sophomore Jenny Ibsen recently declared a self-designed major in Urban Studies.

The student-designed major is not a process for the faint of heart. The student-design process begins at the end of sophomore fall, while most students are in the midst of exams, declaring majors and narrowing down study abroad options. 

Griffee said that designing her own major was an intense process.

“I think that Bowdoin makes it a challenging thing to do because they want to make sure you put the thought and effort into it. You’re basically getting a degree out of it, and they want to make sure that what you set out for yourself is something that’s really going to contribute to your education,” she said. 

The first step in the student-designed major process involves putting together a proposal that resembles, in general, the structure of any other majors available at Bowdoin. The proposal includes dictating exactly what one is planning to do with his or her student-designed major and how Bowdoin’s curriculum might be too limiting without it.  

For Cyr, her post-Bowdoin goals were what ultimately led her to design her own major. “I’m looking to go into the museum career field. I really want to be a curator, and I really like the idea of taking an object, whether it be art or material culture, learning the history about it and creating a story for other people to fall in love with,” she said.

While initially considering an art history and history double major, Cyr eventually realized that this would restrict what she wanted to get out of Bowdoin’s liberal arts education. “I didn’t want to limit myself by saying for the rest of my time here after coming back from abroad, I could take four non-historic, non-art classes…so I decided with my advisors to try it out,” Cyr said.

The next step of the student-design process involves indicating every class that is intended to become a part of the major and explaining why each class is going to be beneficial.Higginbotham emphasized that this step is crucial to the development of the major.

“There is a danger when you create the student-designed major that if a course is not offered or a faculty member is not here when you need it, then you put yourself in a bind,” he said.“[This step] is great in a way because it helps you get a sense of what you want to do and what you see yourself doing your next few years at Bowdoin,” Griffee said. “You basically design a curriculum, which is kind of crazy.”

After the proposal is complete, it is submitted to the Curriculum Implementation Committee, which then decides either to reject the proposal altogether or to offer suggestions on what to change before accepting it.

“It’s stressful especially in the beginning because you don’t know after doing all this work if you’re even going to get it,” said Griffee. “I think we’re the first students in 10 years to have a student-designed major passed, and it’s been three since someone submitted a proposal.”Higginbotham believes that despite these low numbers, the student-design program is not meant to be discouraging. Instead, he sees the lack of applicants as evidence that students aren’t finding the curriculum limiting.

According to Higginbotham, as Bowdoin continues to periodically expand its departments, the student-designed major’s decrease in popularity can be attributed to students finding ways within the majors and minors that are offered by the College to accomplish their goals.Although the student-designed major process can be arduous, the students who take part believe it pays off.

“I would say if you’re passionate about it, it’s definitely worth it,” said Griffee.

On a mission to improve the lives of children battling cancer, two sophomores at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota founded “Love Your Melon”—an organization with the aim of putting a hat on the head of every child battling cancer in America. Upon hearing about the organization’s success in her home state of Minnesota and inspired by its mission, Rachel Stout ’18 decided to become an ambassador for the cause and started a Love Your Melon “Campus Crew” last month.

“[The group’s purpose was] something that seemed to resonate with me,” Stout said. “I wanted something here at Bowdoin that I could get involved with, and I hadn’t really found anything like Love Your Melon. When I thought of it and found out that it was so easy to start, I got excited.”

“All of the kids in our campus crew have been affected in some way by cancer, and that’s kind of the reason so many of them are so rooted in this,” said Clare McInerney ’18, a member of Bowdoin’s Love Your Melon Campus Crew. “I think everyone has someone they’ve known and loved that they’ve lost because of it.”

In addition to spreading the word about the cause, Stout hopes to increase the number of students on campus wearing Love Your Melon hats. 

“Basically [my goal is] to get as many people on campus aware and wearing a hat,” Stout said. “We’re going to try and get a bunch of posters with everyone who has a hat and get different teams and groups to wear hats.” 

With every hat that is purchased through Bowdoin’s chapter, the school receives an equivalent amount of credit, and when certain amounts of credit are attained, the campus crew is given hats to personally deliver to children with cancer. 

On October 22, just a week after beginning the group, Stout and two other members of the Bowdoin College Campus Crew were already dressing up as superheroes, visiting children in hospitals and handing out hats.

“We were given the opportunity to go to Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital in Portland and give out hats to the little kids,” Stout said. For Stout, these personal interactions are what got her involved with the cause in the first place.

“Cancer is an awful thing, but there’s something about spending time with kids who are going through chemo and losing their hair and getting to put a hat on their head that’s special,”Stout said. “It’s a really neat thing to be able to impact a little girl in a hospital for 15 minutes and have her forget about what she’s going through.”

Though McInerney has not gone on one of these special visits, the group has still been powerful to her in other ways, as it has allowed her to see how widely cancer affects people.    Since its founding in 2012, the organization has now spread to more than 200 colleges across the nation. Each participating school represents the brand through promotions, sales events and charitable programming initiatives. 

The ultimate goal of these initiatives is to encourage people to buy beanies and caps from Love Your Melon. For every hat that is purchased, one is donated to a child with cancer and half of the total proceeds made by sales are donated to cancer research.

Stout began asking friends and members of different athletic teams around campus whom she knew would be passionate about the cause to join. Once the minimum of ten members was reached to form the campus crew, she sent in an application. Upon receiving approval a few days later, the club was up and running, making Bowdoin the first college in Maine and one of the only NESCAC schools to represent Love Your Melon. Both Tufts and Trinity also have campus crews. 

Although the group is only allowed a maximum of 20 people, anyone who wants to get involved, whether by participating in bake sales, volunteering or raising awareness, is welcome to do so. 

Though the group has many big plans  for raising awareness and going on further hospital visits, Stout is already happy with the work that the group has done so far.

“There was one little girl Haley who was five and when we walked in dressed as superheroes she just sat up right away and you couldn’t even tell she had cancer because she was smiling so excited for the hat” said Stout. “She was so strong the entire time.”

“That was the pivotal moment of this is what I wanted to do this entire time. Even if it was just that girl that I saw smiling, it was good enough for me,” Stout said.

Last week, ten members of Bowdoin Women in Computer Science (BWICS) participated in the world’s largest gathering of women technologists at the Grace Hooper Celebration in Houston, Texas. Twelve thousand attendees took part in three days filled with tech talks, workshops, networking events and career fairs while surrounded by some of the best minds in computing.

All student attendees were given the opportunity to participate in many of the undergraduate geared activities throughout the conference. Spaces like the Student Opportunity Lab gave groups of people time to talk to mentors about topics such as applying to graduate school, succeeding in tech-interviews, or navigating the technology internship scene. Other spaces gave students one-on-one face time with recruiters from all over the country who were looking to give on-the-spot interviews to female students and future leaders in the tech industry.

Computer Science major and Bowdoin Women in Computer Science leader Bella Tumaneng ’17 was one of the ten female students who attended the conference this year. She said that the conference provided  not only opportunities to look for internships, but also to learn from other women in the field. 

“I found it very empowering to be around such a large number of people with whom I had something very important in common with,” she said. “Speakers were sharing their experiences and talking about things they do at work and in school.” 

Tumaneng said that she found strong support from other participants in workshops. Tumaneng believes that the lack of female support networks is the number one reason people are dropping out of technology fields.

Senior Computer Science major and BWICS member Gina Stalica ’16 said she struggled in her early days of taking Computer Science classes. 

“There was a period of time where I was really intimidated by it. I was intimidated to ask guys in my class for help,” she said. 

Because of the daunting gender disparity in technology, BWICS aims to build on campus networks of encouragement.

“As an upperclassman student I look up to seniors for advice and support, but I also try to support sophomores and freshman,” Tumaneng said.

The group hosts study sessions and workshops for its members throughout the year, and they encourage women outside the club who show an interest in tech to explore taking classes.According to Tumaneng, lack of early tech exposure also contributes to the gender gap. One of the new aims of BWICS this year is also to broaden the scope of their support networks to the greater Brunswick community by bringing tech exposure to younger girls in middle school and high school.

Tumaneng believes that women in the field need the simple reassurance that “what you want to do is perfectly valid” and as a result, BWICS’ overarching objective is “to show you that you can actually do all of it.”

As the field of technology continues to augment its level of female representation, the prominence of BWICS on campus is as necessary as ever to empower women through its many outlets of support.