ITiCSE 2017 "Part 2"

Insights On Gender Differences in CS1:

A Multi-institutional, Multi-variate Study.


The Conference

ITiCSE was so much more than I expected. This was in part due to the caliber of presentations and CS Educators, and also in part to the openness and friendliness of the conference. On my first day I ended up speaking to a co-chair of the conference, and he was so friendly to me (at this point I did not know he was a co-chair), and he said something that I will never forget:

"There are no titles here, people do not even use them, a good idea is a good idea, be it from an undergraduate student or a professor, we love good idea's"

This really sets the tone of the conference, and something that I will never forget. ITiCSE and SIGCSE (ACM Special Interest Group in Computer Science Education), now hold a very special place in my heart. It was a feast of ideas for all areas of CSEd. I learned so much in three short days. I now am aiming to attend all the SIGCSE conferences when I can, paper or not.


My Presentation

For the first time in a long time, I was nervous about speaking in front of a crowd. Mainly due to the caliber of the crowd itself. I was speaking about gender in CS1. To set a tone for my nerves, the two speakers before me in my session, were experts in the field. One was also nominated and won best paper! It was a tough act to follow. I think it went down well, there was a lot of positive questions afterwards and people and institutions wanting to get involved in the study, which was amazing! Several people said that my study will be in their first slide next semester! ITiCSE was an amazing experience, one that I will ever forget!