“If somebody would have told me I would graduate and work for Microsoft, I would have told them to: Shut. Up.”
Sedra’s excited surprise stems from more than landing a software engineering job at a company that accepts a fraction of applicants. An Afghanistan native with a family displaced by the Taliban, she’s faced challenges beyond being a woman in a field dominated by men.
She attributes much of that success to Women in Science & Engineering (WiSE), a program she says has empowered her to land one internship at EchoStar and two more at Microsoft, all with two little words.
Say yes.
“One thing I’ve learned. Just go ahead and do it. I loved math in high school, and when I toured here, I knew this is where I wanted to go. Computer science challenged me more than anything else. I fell in love with it.”
The support of the WiSE Center, other female students, the career center, and role models like Dr. Antonette Logar—a trailblazer in her own right who launched a computer science career—will all culminate Saturday as Sedra takes her first steps across the commencement stage.
“My mother always says droplets form rivers”—and Sedra’s is leading straight to a career at one of the biggest names in tech.
#STEMINISM