This Saturday, Bryn Mawr Athletics had its first-ever homecoming. My old tennis teammates Melina and Molly came back and we played tennis in the morning, and there were fun events throughout the day. It was fun to see families of alumnae on campus, and to sell sports gear during the soccer game for Owls Fight For a Cure (we sell gear and food where the proceeds benefit breast cancer research).
Speaking with alumnae on Saturday got me thinking about all the Bryn Mawr alumnae I’ve met during my four years here.
Bryn Mawr and Haverford students have an opportunity to do an externship, a sort-of shadowing program with alums from both colleges, and during winter break of my sophomore year, I did one. My host was Susan Morrow (BMC’90), the COO and co-founder of One Uni, an Oakland tech startup working to serve students who may otherwise be unable to get a college degree. I learned a lot from her about product management and development, entrepreneurship (she received her MBA from Stanford), and more, marketing, and business, and I also got the chance to learn from engineers there on Android, Python, and their technology stack and tools. What really stuck with me, however, was Susan’s passion, drive, and confidence. She led meetings and handled questions, problems, and people empathetically and supportively. She spoke so fondly of her time at Bryn Mawr, and we still keep in touch: she was the first alumna that I got to know well, and she made me think, “wow, can I be her?”
Googling a business or Android term I just heard at One Uni: January 2017
The following summer, I met another alumna when I interned at a San Francisco startup. Grace McLane ’14 works in growth marketing, and though we worked in different areas, she taught me so much, like to ask for one-on-one’s from everyone, including the CEO. She showed her grit and leadership in taking on tasks unrelated to her job and learning on the fly, and her go-getter attitude really rubbed off on me. Grace helped make me feel at home there, and we meet up most times I’m home on break.
Only picture of me and Grace’14: Company brunch for interns’ last day, August 2017
The day before BMC Homecoming, I finally met Asia Hoe, an alumna I met on Twitter and have been trying to meet in real life for a few months. She’s doing really interesting product work in tech in New York. She talked a lot about her experience at Bryn Mawr, specifically her transition as an English major into tech, and also the mentors she’s met.
I’ve been fortunate to find mentors in the tech industry who I can call “mom” and “queen,” like Bear, whose mom attended Bryn Mawr. I’ve also realized that Melina, Molly, and other classmates are mentors of sorts as well: they led the tennis team and managed so many extracurricular activities, academics, and job and graduate school commitments flawlessly, setting the best example for me. All the alumnae I’ve met are strong, confident, passionate, caring, and generous with their time, and I can only hope to someday be like them and do the same.