My amazing CodeU experience

Hello world!

It’s been a while since my last post! So let me catch up a little and tell you that I got an invitation to the CodeU program!!

So here is my experience!

CodeU is an invite-only 12 week virtual program conducted by Google for female-identifying students pursuing CS or related degrees.

I got an invitation to participate in April, and the program run from May to July, ending in the Google Student Retreat held in the London Google office.

When you register you have to choose a programming language of your preference, I chose Python. Then you are grouped in small developing teams (we were three girls) and each team is coached by a Google Engineer who helps with technical skills and provides career and academic mentorship.

We had to solve several programming exercises of increasing difficulty. We covered important topics in Data Structures and Algorithms like trees, BFS, DFS, tries, graphs… First week of the assignment, you solve the exercise as you can, then your mentor reviews the code and tells you how to improve your solution, and you commit the changes until a valid solution is reached. The first four exercises were individual exercises and the last two were collaborative. That let us improve both technical and soft skills.

Besides, they gave us very interesting video presentations about a bunch of topics related to work environment, technical preparation, industry tools…

The program culminated in the Google Student Retreat. We had the opportunity to travel to London, visit the beautiful Google Office, and share three amazing days with women from all accross Europe, Middle East and Africa, all together with the same interest in technology.

We attended some awesome talks about what it’s like to work for Google, how to prepare for the interview, more Google culture… and we even did some fun games to know each other, and do a little bit of networking.

Let me say that being in the same room with more than a hundred women with a CS background was a thrilling moment.

So thanks to the wonderful people that participated and made this possible.

And thank you Google!