"In my … computer science department, there are more Dave's than girls" - Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In (2013)
Hi, my name is Amy Nicholson and I've recently joined Microsoft as a graduate on the MACH Scheme (Microsoft Academy for College Hires). My role is a Technical Evangelist with the aim of reaching a developer or IT Pro audience and evangelising Microsoft products and services.
I entered the Microsoft world when I was about 10 years old. Not because I was some kind of child prodigy, but because my Grandad gave my family our first desktop computer and helped Bill Gates and Paul Allen fulfil their vision; "a computer on every desktop and in every home". From what I remember, it wasn't even connected to the internet, but I was fascinated by the games I could play and the endless new shortcuts and tools I could use. I think this, partnered with my need to create, understand and learn new things, ended with me studying BSc Computer Science at The University of Sheffield.
My course taught me skills in so many areas of Computer Science including Software Engineering, Intelligent Web, Data Driven computing and many more. As the quote in the title suggests, I was one of very few girls on my course and there were also a lot of Dave's! I think its brilliant being a female in technology and would love to help encourage more women to get into technical subjects.
During my second year I secured an internship year at Microsoft. I was a Technical Program Manager at Bing and worked on the Autosuggest feature team. This meant managing the progression of feature ideas to final products. I had an amazing year; I learnt so many new skills and knew I definitely wanted to come back to Microsoft. My internship year was extremely important and I would urge all students at university to consider gaining experience, be that yearlong or summer placements.
After finishing my final year of study and producing a dissertation project centered on machine leaning and sentiment analysis of Twitter data, I graduated with a First Class Honors in Computer Science with Employment Experience.
Now a month into my graduate job, I am over-the-moon to be back at Microsoft and I am really enjoying the diversity of the Technical Evangelism role. I am creating apps, getting involved in the area of Data Science and hoping to attend and present at events in the near future. I’m currently setting up a blog space, however check out my other social media streams:
See you soon!