Life in Computing and Software, or LiCS for short, is a student-run group in the Department of Computing and Software at McMaster University. It was created to improve graduate student life and conditions at the departmental level.
As the Vice President of Events for LiCS I work closely with our department and other LiCS members to organize and run events for our student body. Since my time with the organization, we have restructured from a monthly seminar/social, to a tiered event structure of weekly, bi-weekly, and monthly events. Our weekly event is a coffee house for students and professors to mingle outside of the teacher-student structure. We run bi-weekly board game nights, where we provide pizza and encourage team building games. Our monthly event changes with the season to accommodate the interests of students.
In addition to running social events, LiCS works for transparency and student advocacy at the departmental level. We have memebers serving as representatives on the Departmental Graduate Curriculum Policy Committee, as stewards in CUPE 3906, and hopefully soon we will have a representative at the Departmental Meetings. This ensures that graduate student concerns are being heard, and that graduate students are kept informed about changes that will affect their lives.
As of January 2019 LiCS runs a yearly focus group to gather feedback from students about pressing issues and changes that ought to be made to the department. This focus group also serves as a measure for LiCS to evaluate their usefulness and redirect attention as needed.
LiCS also assists with the Graduate Retreat. This is used as a focus group run by the department to collect direct feedback and concerns from the general graduate student community, as well as to encourage team building among graduate students.
If you're interested in seeing what events we have planned, take a look at our calendar below!
As a woman in software engineering, I'm also passionate about being a role model for younger students.
I volunteer yearly with elementary school classes in my hometown of Scarborough, ON to talk with students about thinking algorithmically. Usually this involves explaining the concept of algorithms as a series of steps that when followed solve a problem. I then work with the students to think of how to break down big problems into bite-sized pieces.
Along with this I talk to students about some important women from Computing and Software history, such as Ada Lovelace. I also take their questions about what it's like being in university studying this field, and how I got here.