So you’ve probably heard — if you want that job, or that promotion or anything else under the sun, you have to network! But what if you suck at first impressions, are perpetually awkward and can’t small talk to save your life?

Well, this is the article for you! I don’t make great first impressions — especially in group settings/conferences. If you talk to me after my 2 hour social battery is drained out I’m a total “awko taco” and you probably won’t understand what I’m saying.

I used to think that I was hopeless and that I’d never be…

A while back I did a free LinkedIn and resume review giveaway and I got over 500 entries in 5 days! There was no way I could review 500 resumes so instead I decided to give everyone instructions on how to review someone’s resume and match them with one of the other participants.

I get dozens of requests on a daily basis to review people’s resumes so I decided to share exactly what I would do in a resume review to everyone so you can basically be my proxy. …

So I finished a full year of being a real adult, wore my big girl pants and worked at Microsoft. And holy wow- I have learnt so much! It’s been an *interesting* year to say the least. Moving to Seattle, paying ridiculous amounts of rent, just to stay inside my apartment listening to people say “can you see my screen?”, “you’re on mute” and “we’re in unprecedented times” over and over again was not what I had in mind.

I still have so much to celebrate, so much I’ve learnt and that usually calls for a nice long word ramble…

I met Lauren through the Google scholars retreat and have been amazed by her ever since. I’m so excited to share her journey and story with the rest of you!

Tell us a little about yourself!

I just graduated from North Carolina State University majoring in Computer Science, Political Science, and Economics. Recently I finished up an internship on the data science team at the Princeton Gerrymandering Project. I was also pretty involved on campus, and I care a lot about interdisciplinary education, tech policy, and equity & social justice (particularly as it relates to tech). I’ll soon be working at Google as a software engineer.

How did figure out what you wanted to do and how did you go about doing it?

…

If you’re in tech and “don’t care” about the world around you — I’m worried about what you’ll create

You’re indifference has consequences.

Want to be a great developer/pm/designer or any other role in tech? Listen and learn about the world around you.

Social justice issues will always be tech issues.

The following are a list of resources that break this down

Books

Weapons of Math Destruction: How big data increases inequality and threatens democracy -Cathy O’Neil

Algorithms of Oppressions: How search engineers reinforce racism -Safiya U. Noble

Artificial Unintelligence: How computers misunderstand the world- Meredith Broussard

Race After Technology: Abolitionist…

Over the course of my 4 years in college I had 3 different internships! All of these experiences were quite distinct and I absolutely loved all of them. I worked as a Engineering Practicum intern at Google, Program Manager intern at Microsoft and Software Engineering intern at Khan Academy.

Ideally I would have never graduated and just kept doing different internships one after the other — but eventually those student loans added up and I was forced to graduate and get a “real” job.

I’m so excited to share my interview with Blessing Adogame! I met Blessing at a student retreat at Google a few years ago and we stayed connected afterwards through LinkedIn. Blessing has been an incredible advocate for people, particularly students, to share their story. Hope you’ll learn from her as much as I have!

Tell me a little bit about yourself. What do you currently do, what are you interested in, etc.?

My name is Blessing Adogame, originally from Nigeria but have lived in various other countries before relocating to the United States in 2015. I’m a junior at Drexel University, studying Computer Information Systems with minors in Business Administration and Security Technology. I’ve always been interested in…

Every time I tell my friends and family that I’m a Program Manager at Microsoft it is met with a lot of confusion — “wait — you’re a manager? But didn’t you just graduate? Are you sure that’s your actual job? What do you do? So are you in IT?”

This has by far been the most requested article since I’ve started blogging. I constantly get questions through social media as well as in person about what it is like to be a Program Manager, how I became one and what skills helped me land the job.

So to avoid…