Amber, 21, is a computer science major at Wellesley College and a summer 2018 intern at Qualtrics. She’s had an interest in technology since she was young, largely driven by her interest in gaming. Here, she explains how gaming drove her to start her career in tech, and what she’s learned along the way.
Growing up in an age of rapidly developing technology, I quickly found an affinity and interest in computers. A lot of that fascination rooted itself in the realm of online computer games. I'd never had the opportunity for a formal programming education in middle or high school, but I found some interest in playing around with web development, and mods for computer games.
When I got to college, I was able to explore my interest in tech in a more structured way. My first year I took an “intro to computer science” course and got a chance to dip my toes into the field of programming, after which I declared my major in computer science. While computer science is heavily male-dominated – women only earn 18% of computer science degrees in the nation – I attend a historically all women’s college, so my CS classes, on the contrary, have little to no male students.
While my experience in CS so far hasn’t been male-dominated, growing up in the world of gaming exposed me to another predominantly male occupied space. Gaming as a form of entertainment overall is often stigmatized, and associated most generally with white men – as a result, women aren't often encouraged to pursue it as a hobby. While, I didn't necessarily experience an abundance of direct sexism early on, I certainly wasn't encouraged to pursue my interest in gaming. While gaming’s reputation for interfering with academics played a large part in the discouragement I faced, I know that a certain degree was also due to the general perceptions of video games being a "boys" hobby. On top of that, there are a certain number of genres in gaming that were clearly marketed predominantly towards men, and often games fail to represent women in a way that doesn't exclusively cater to the male gaze.
As I got more involved in online gaming communities, particularly competitive communities, I definitely faced more direct sexism. Men would sometimes make assumptions about my ability to play, exclusively focus on my gender, and on occasion endlessly berate me with nonsense until I’d have no choice but to mute them. My experiences and understanding of gaming culture, and in particular being a women within that culture, is in large part, what inspired me to create a gaming club at Wellesley during my sophomore year. I formed the club to establish a community at Wellesley and neighboring schools to give women a place to share and explore their interest in gaming, whether that’s in PC gaming, console, competitive gaming or e-sports. I've talked with a lot of women about their experiences as gamers, their anecdotes rife with experiences of being singled out by their gender.
From what I've seen, those experiences can be isolating, and discourage them from participating to the fullest – which in turn erases a large population of women in gaming, leading to a perceived absence of women in gaming as a whole. That’s why I’m passionate about being active and visible in the gaming community – it can encourage more women to join in.
While I’m passionate about increasing representation in gaming, I’m also thankful that it’s broadened my interests and led me to join the tech space as a whole. I did a game development internship last summer, working with a team to develop mobile games. Since it was my first development internship, I learned a lot about the cycle, methods of development, and working with and leading a team. It gave me a lot of experience as a technical programmer and leader, and prepared me for my current internship with Qualtrics.
I got connected with Qualtrics through RippleMatch, and it was clear they were working on building an inclusive team. Experiencing the gender disparity in the gaming world and hearing about the male-dominated CS classes from my female friends at coed schools, I appreciated the efforts made by Qualtrics to have an inclusive space. My first interview with the company also left a great impression – my interviewer was kind, generous, and very willing to listen. He seemed like he really cared about my interview experience and perception of Qualtrics, which I haven’t found to be too common in internship interviews. He also shared his own journey to the company, which felt very genuine. It helped the whole experience stand out and contributed to my decision to accept my internship offer.
From creating a safe space for female gamers to landing my internship with Qualtrics, gaming has had a huge impact on my experience in tech so far. With my career just getting started, I plan on continuing to learn as much as I can, developing my career and hopefully positively impacting a larger scope of people in the process.