Mary Jean Harrold – BS MS math, secondary, college math teacher, PhD CS, Georgia Tech now.

Mary is a fast speaker but by the end I understand why. She was trying to pack years worth of advise into one session. With her kind and inspiring words I think many girls felt reassured that they are not asking too much of their advisors and of themselves. A lot of people talk to me about their advisor and most times it is just small problems but when I hear something big my advise to them is to change advisors. It was reassuring to hear her say that this is a possible task.

The one thing I remember most from her session is:
“Advisor-advisee relationship are forever. You want an advisor that will do things. After you graduate you want someone on your side. Recommend you for awards later. In general be a continual advisor. Almost every time she has something serious she asks her advisors opinion.”

Nina Bhatti – UC Berkeley BA Mathematics and Computer Science, worked at tektronix inc sw developer 3 yrs. Made her excited to go back to grad school. Now a research scientist at HP labs.

She started with an older professor but she ended up with a younger group. Professional research is different you determine what is a good area business as well as technical reasons.

Besides her very interesting research the two point that she really drove home in this session was the need for funding and the importance of collaboration. Even if you are going into the academic world you will need money. Also no matter where you are coming from you will need to be able to bring people together behind your ideas and this is an important skill to have.