Women in STEM: Gina Holden, Computer Engineering

Gina Holden earned her computer engineering degree from Georgia Tech. Here she shares a little about her career and the inspiration behind it.

What is your specific area of STEM?
Computer Engineering

How would you explain your STEM field to young girls? 
Software Engineers make computers able to understand what we want them to do. We take a human explanation of a problem and make machines able to solve it.

What traits might a child possess that may indicate an interest or aptitude for your STEM field? 
Interest in math and logic.  Analytical thinking skills.  Interest and aptitude for algorithms and data structures and organization.

What did you know about your STEM field when you were a child? 
Not much! I was always good at math and science so I went to a STEM high school where I received a broad exposure to many types of engineering.  Only by doing a few different internships in high school in different fields (medicine, aviation, and then finally software) was I able to find my passion.
 
Why did you choose your STEM field? Were you inspired by someone?
I did not know anyone in software! I didn't even understand it was a career option until the summer before I went to college during an internship with a software company. This work was interesting to me so I took a chance and chose a major. Luckily it was a good fit!

What are some really cool things that people in your profession work on? 

• We program the brains behind self driving cars! ..and all other AI like Alexa, Cortana, siri
• We make the Internet work {well}
• We make your iPhone able to do 100 different things through the apps
• We make facebook and Instagram :)
• I make Microsoft Windows work. Specifically, I make your machine able to recover from crashes and hangs caused by bad software

What inspirational message would you give young girls to inspire them to pursue STEM? 
Technology is the future of everything and we need the smartest, brightest people working on solutions. We can never win if we leave half of those minds behind. {Everyone knows girls are smarter than boys :)}


Thank you for contributing, Gina!

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