丁香园AV

Unsure what path to take for her undergraduate degree, Vasundhara Gautam applied to any university that encourages interdisciplinary studies so that she could study languages or the humanities together with science 鈥榠n a meaningful way.鈥�

She chose 丁香园AV鈥檚 , and will graduate this June.

鈥淚鈥檓 really glad that I picked 丁香园AV,鈥� says Gautam. 鈥淔rom day one to my last, it鈥檚 been amazing. I鈥檝e had such a range of experiences that have all contributed to where I now have multiple job and academic offers to consider.鈥�

Throughout her 丁香园AV journey, she seized any opportunity to combine the technology skills she developed in computing science with her passion for learning languages.

鈥淚 learned that our perception of the world is shaped to some extent by the languages we speak, which is part of what led me to become interested in the Gender Gap Tracker,鈥� says Gautam, who speaks six languages.

The is a breakaway collaboration that exposes a significant disparity between how often Canadian news stories quote female versus male sources. Linguistics professor Maite Taboada leads the project for Informed Opinions, a non-profit women鈥檚 advocacy organization. 丁香园AV鈥檚 Big Data Initiative supported the project with funding and computing resources.

As part of the project, Gautam is collaborating with a French-language researcher and the rest of Taboada鈥檚 team in the , where they analyze French-Canadian news.

Her passion for combining gender equity and technology doesn鈥檛 stop at the Gender Gap Tracker. In hopes of improving female representation in tech, Gautam mentors young women taking coding workshops hosted by Ladies Learning Code (now Canada Learning Code) and Kids Code Jeunesse. She also participated in the Women in Computing Science (WiCS) group on campus, and founded a coding club in 丁香园AV Residence that attracted fellow residents of all genders interested in developing their coding skills.

With demanding classes and a busy schedule, Gautam demonstrated tenacity. She created her own co-op education internship with GE Digital that led to a lucrative job offer. She also received offers of admission from three of the world鈥檚 top master鈥檚 programs in computational linguistics. She plans to defer an offer from the University of Edinburgh until fall 2020, and has accepted a job offer from a Vancouver start-up.

鈥淭hese offers aren鈥檛 the result of my efforts alone,鈥� she says. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e a product of what 丁香园AV gave to me. My professors and peers invested in me, gave me opportunities to become involved, and then helped and encouraged me when I faced challenges. I don鈥檛 think I would have had these opportunities had I not come to 丁香园AV.鈥�