• About
  • Editorial Board
  • Advertise
  • Join Us
  • Archives
The Wellesley News -
  • News and Features
    • Welcoming Wellesley’s Green Class of 2025
      Welcoming Wellesley’s Green Class of 2025
    • 2020 Alumnae Achievement Awards Held Virtually; 3 Awardees Honored
      2020 Alumnae Achievement Awards Held Virtually; 3 Awardees Honored
    • Students Remember the Legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsberg
      Students Remember the Legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsberg
    • News
      • News in Brief
      • Nation & World
      • President’s Corner
      • Senate Report
    • Features
      • Alumnae Spotlight
      • Eye on Science
      • Faculty Focus
      • LGBTQIA+ Column
  • Opinions
    • No image
      You have no valid reasons to oppose raising the minimum wage
    • No image
      Free the pee: cut the hygiene theater and let us use other bathrooms
    • Wellesley, why can’t you meet our dietary needs?
      Wellesley, why can’t you meet our dietary needs?
    • Staff Editorial
    • Letters to the Editor
    • The Elephant in the Room
  • Arts
    • “Judas and the Black Messiah” subverts, soars as Civil Rights story
      “Judas and the Black Messiah” subverts, soars as Civil Rights story
    • Black Entertainment Without Black Trauma: Recommendations for BHM!
      Black Entertainment Without Black Trauma: Recommendations for BHM!
    • Queer Storylines in “The Prom” Fall Flat
      Queer Storylines in “The Prom” Fall Flat
    • Arts In The News
    • Reviews
    • Music Peek
  • Health and Wellness
    • COVID-19: Popping the Wellesley Bubble
      COVID-19: Popping the Wellesley Bubble
    • No image
      Athletic impacts of Covid-19
    • No image
      A new kind of PE
    • Athlete of the Week
    • Boston Sports Update
    • The Vegan Digest
    • The SHE Corner
  • Miscellanea
    • No image
      Remote students experience existential crises; change class years in email signatures
    • President’s Column: The Butterfly Effect
      President’s Column: The Butterfly Effect
    • Your next on-campus romance isn’t going to work out
      Your next on-campus romance isn’t going to work out
    • The Artichoke
    • The Dose
    • The Olive Branch
    • Multimedia
      • Galleries
      • Infographics
      • Videos
By Tiffany Chen FeaturesSeptember 26, 2014

Google at Wellesley aims to boost confidence for women in tech

Sonali Sastry ’15 doesn’t take no for an answer when it comes to getting women involved in technology. Decked out from top to bottom in the lighter version of the Wellesley blue and armed with Google “swag,” Sastry was dressed to inspire.

When I approached her information session table in the afternoon of Sept. 18, Sastry greeted me with a warm, crinkling smile, a firm handshake and a confident, friendly greeting. The table was crowded with laptops for mailing list registration, Google sunglasses, bags and lines of Wellesley students yearning to learn more about Google work opportunities.

Sonali Sastry is a computer science major. She was hired by Google this year to act as the Wellesley College Google Student Ambassador after being nominated and approved.

“My role is to act as a liaison between the school and the company,” Sastry said after giving students introductions to Google. “Basically, I want to get Wellesley students to become more aware of Google by hosting on-campus events such as hackathons and tech talks.”

When asked about the goals of Google at Wellesley as well as the motivation behind the student ambassador program, Sastry brought to light the problems facing women in technology.

“There is a large gap between tech companies and Wellesley students. For example, not a lot of tech companies are coming to Wellesley because I guess they don’t know about Wellesley,” Sastry said. “Google, however, is aware of Wellesley; they just didn’t come to Wellesley to recruit when I was a first-year. Though now we have companies like Square, Google and Microsoft coming here to recruit, I want more companies to come recruit, especially now when the number of computer science majors are increasing.”

This is especially true as now many technology companies are attempting to recruit from the Seven Sisters colleges.

Earlier this year, the Guardian reported that out of all the employees working in Google, 30 percent are female, with women filling only 17 percent of technical positions.

“I think that women with a liberal arts education are prepared to tackle problems in the tech world using different approaches,” Sastry commented as she looked for possible questions from the curious Wellesley students. “A student with a liberal arts education acquires important communication skills by taking courses in other disciplines.” Sastry emphasized the need for communication skills between engineers, product managers, investors and clients.

“Wellesley students also learn about a variety of unsolved problems by taking different classes. In learning these, Wellesley women have the skill of innovating solutions to these problems using software. So I think women with liberal arts backgrounds will be able to contribute more innovative ideas to tech companies because they have been exposed to different ideas and subjects,” Sastry said.

However, this does not mean that opportunities within tech companies are only open to women in technology. Technology companies are also open to students in fields such as business and design.

“Anyone can participate and apply to Google,” Sastry said, “There are so many positions available like sales and marketing.”

This year will be the first year in which Google will be officially recruiting students from Wellesley. The opportunities currently available are internships in technical positions.

Share on

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • Google +
  • LinkedIn
  • Email
Previous articleLocal Textbook Walks Out of Clapp Library
Next articleQuestBridge connects three first years to Wellesley

You may also like

Welcoming Wellesley’s Green Class of 2025

The many anonymous Instagram accounts of Wellesley College

Turning Slack-tivism to App-tivism

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Email Newsletter

Sign up to receive our weekly digest in your inbox

* indicates required

Top Articles

  • Free the pee: cut the hygiene theater and let us use other b...
  • COVID-19: Popping the Wellesley Bubble
  • Queer Storylines in “The Prom” Fall Flat
  • Black Entertainment Without Black Trauma: Recommendations fo...
  • You have no valid reasons to oppose raising the minimum wage

Recent Tweets

Tweets by @Wellesley_News

The independent student newspaper of Wellesley College since 1901.

Sign up to receive our weekly digest in your inbox

* indicates required

  • About
  • Editorial Board
  • Advertise
  • Join Us
  • Archives
COPYRIGHT © 2021 THE WELLESLEY NEWS
Back to top