More Women in Tech: Meet the Northeastern CISters
April 19th, 2011
Cisters Valentine's Day Dinner. Left to right: Melissa Xie, VuAnh Nguyen, Theresa Landry, Ali Green, Liz Brown, Alex Schieren, Anne-Marie Suciu
If you are a part of the Northeastern College of Computer and Information Science (CCIS), chances are you’ve noticed there aren’t many women in the College. With a ratio of 9 men per every one woman, it must be tough for undergraduate females to thrive in the male-dominated field. This is why a group called CISters commits itself to supporting women in the CCIS. Members of CISters come together for weekly meetings and events in order to meet and keep in touch with women like themselves, and through their differences, they are united by their love of all things tech.
CISters has been at Northeastern since 2005, and was just approved as an official student group last week. By co-hosting events with the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), holding workshops, and working with middle school students, CISters is constantly trying to find new ways to incite interest in technology among themselves, and around the community. The group is student-run, but not without the help of co-advisor's Doreen Hodgkin, the Assistant Dean of the College of Computer and Information Science and Professor Harriet Fell, who are there to guide members through event planning and help make decisions for the organization.
Although the main function of CISters is to offer a CISterhood (get it?), that doesn’t mean that they don’t find cool ways to contribute to the community! Co-President Elizabeth Brown told us,”CISters is more on the ‘social’ side, but that doesn’t mean that all we do is plan fun activities. We like to have a balance of social, professional, and educational events. Our events range from ice skating to alumni panels to networking events with companies.”
Even though CISters is a group devoted to helping women in CCIS, men can join too – and they do! Students from any Northeastern college can participate in the group as long as they are interested in Computer and Information Science.
What makes CISters unique is that its members truly do have a CISterhood. “All of my roommates are CISters,” Brown told us. “Though this group of people is very diverse, we all get along very well and enjoy spending time together, whether it is at an ice cream social, an alumni panel, leading a workshop for Junior Girls Scouts, or participating in a Microsoft panel about women in technology. If I had never joined CISters, I would not have met so many amazing friends.”
Although the 2010-2011 school year is rapidly drawing to a close, make sure to check out a CISters meeting this fall! They meet every Tuesday at 6 PM in West Village H Room 166. You can find their calendar here if you’d like to stop in and see what’s going on in the world of women in tech.
Follow CISters on Twitter, become their fan on Facebook, and if you’re a Northeastern student interested in Computer and Information Science, make sure to join – it sounds like you won’t regret it!
Article by Elizabeth Bailey - BostInnovation