Category Archives: News & Reviews

Comparing College Costs

Yesterday, I paid $193 for my son Paul’s first Freshman quarter at Foothill College (Los Altos, California). Foothill is a community college where Paul will be taking a light load for his first term and living at home. Today, my daughter Jessica in her organized way sent us a detailed breakdown of the costs for the first semester of her senior year at Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania). Tuition at CMU is $20,590 and other expenses (food, housing, books, travel) come to $4,525 for a half-year total of $25,115. I think that works out to CMU costing about 100 times what Foothill College does.  CMU is a great school and Jessica has done very well there (she is on the Dean’s List again, with High Honors!).  It is worth the cost.

Here are the kids having fun together during Spring Break in Egypt:

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Images Copyright 2010 by Katy Dickinson

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Not Very Yes

My husband John just accepted an offer of work from Huaweihooray! I am very happy for him to get a good job as a Software Engineer after so long.  John and I are in different groups but are at the same company together for the third time. Huawei is a leading telecom solutions provider based in Shenzhen, China (near Hong Kong). John and I are working in their Santa Clara, California, center.

I have been working as Huawei’s Chief Analyst, Software Development Trends, for the past month. It is an interesting place. In the thirty years I have worked in research and development, I am used to being in the minority because I am a woman. At Huawei, I am also one of a small group whose primary language is English, and I am even more unusual in being a born American.

Despite our cultural and language differences, my new co-workers have been helpful and welcoming. The lady in the office next door has shared her honeysuckle tea and her cookies. I brought in some of the roses and nandina from my garden for her and others who have helped me. I am learning how to work with both the Chinese nationals and my fellow “foreign experts”.

As in many cultures, saying a direct “no” seems to be impolite in China. I have started listening for the ways in which my co-workers give an indirect negative response, such as:

“Not very Yes”
“Not exactly”
“Not so much…”
“I have a suggestion…”
“Not very good”
“Maybe, but…”

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Image 2010 Copyright by Katy Dickinson

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Gilroy Gardens Visit

We visited Gilroy Gardens with nine inner city San Jose kids from the after school program at Santa Maria Urban Ministry yesterday. This was the second of our three summer field trips – we went to the beach with them last month. Lewis and John and I drove the kids to the theme park at Hecker Pass and had a good time going on rides, getting wet, and admiring the gardens and Axel Erlandson’s fascinating circus trees. Next month, we take the kids to Raging Waters water park.

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Images Copyright 2010 Katy Dickinson and John Plocher

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Lions’ Fundraiser, “Hot San Jose Nights” Car Show

From 7-11 am this morning, the Willow Glen Lions Club served 220 pancake breakfasts during the first half of its two-day charity fundraiser at the Hot San Jose Nights vintage and historical car event (Santa Clara Fairgrounds).  We gave away free helium balloons and made balloon lions for the little kids. All proceeds will go toward this summer’s camp scholarships for the Diabetes Society (in Willow Glen).  The Willow Glen Lions are also collecting eyeglasses to be recycled – given to needy people at no charge.

The car show features a huge variety of vehicles, including a historic Kenworth truck, sports cars from many eras, a red 1957 Chevrolet, a tank, and a huge motorcycle, the world’s largest, said to cost $300,000.

Here are some pictures from today:

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Images by Katy Dickinson and John Plocher, Copyright 2010

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10th Wedding Anniversary

My husband John and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary last weekend. Since our kids are together in Washington D.C., we had more time to enjoy the special celebration. We went out to dinner twice: first, to La Fondue (in Saratoga, California), and then to Teatro ZinZanni (in San Francisco). Teatro ZinZanni circus, cabaret, and dinner theater is also celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. It was great fun!

Here some pictures from last weekend…

La Fondue, Saratoga California

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Teatro ZinZanni, San Francisco

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Images Copyright Katy Dickinson and John Plocher 2010

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Pancakes & San Jose Metblog Entries

I just posted a San Jose Metblog entry about the Willow Glen Lions Club preparing to serve up Pancakes for Charity, at “Hot San Jose Nights” this coming weekend at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds.

The Lions practiced cooking eggs, bacon, sausage, and pancakes at last night’s meeting – it was good!

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My other recent San Jose Metblog posts:

You can see the index to all 13 of my San Jose Metblogs postings on: Authors – Katy Dickinson.

Images Copyright 2010 by Katy Dickinson and John Plocher

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Advancing Your Career Through Awards (GHC2010)

Registration is now open for the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing conference, to be held in Atlanta, Georgia: September 28 – October 2, 2010. GHC is an amazing event and sells out early – so register and get your hotel room soon!

I will be presenting a panel for GHC2010 called “Advancing Your Career Through Awards”. The panel is scheduled for Thursday, 30 September at 11:15 am. This will make six Hopper Conferences at which I have presented. I am honored to have an impressive group of panelists. The panel description follows…

Advancing Your Career Through Awards

Abstract

There are hundreds of awards available to women in computing, from the TR35 (MIT’s award for top young innovators), to the ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award for outstanding young computer professionals, to Senior Member or Fellow of the ACM, IEEE, or National Academy, to the Anita Borg Institute Women of Vision awards. In industry, promotions and high-status titles such as Fellow or Distinguished Engineer serve the same function as awards.

Awards are a public acknowledgment of success and excellence. Awards are good for both the honored individual as well as their company, institution, or university. Award winners serve as role models for women entering the field. Moreover, awards build on each other: award winners are more likely to be noticed and considered for additional awards.

However, despite this importance, awards often go begging for lack of good nominations and a great woman is often overlooked because no one mentioned her name or took the time to carefully craft an effective nomination package. This panel will discuss the value of awards and encourage the technical community to develop an increased focus on awards for great technical women at every stage in their careers. Our goal is for more remarkable technical women to consider how to prepare for and pursue awards early in their careers.

What difference does it make if you get awards? What awards are appropriate for your career? How do we ensure that more women students, professionals, and academics will get into the queue and on the lists of those honored? Come and find out!

1. Audience
Women of any age who are students, faculty, or in business, who want greater public acknowledgment of their accomplishments and who want to understand how awards will help their career, will find this panel of interest

2. Panel

3. Bibliography

  • Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology Technical Advisory Board, “Award-Winning Career Timelines” (web pages to be published soon on http://anitaborg.org/ )
  • Frey, Bruno S. “Awards as Compensation” European Management Review (2007) 4, 6-14
  • Frey, Bruno S., Susanne Neckermann “Abundant but Neglected: Awards as Incentives” Economists’ Voice, The Berkeley Electronic Press, http://www.bepress.com/ev, February 2009
  • Neckermann, Susanne, Reto Cueni, Bruno S. Frey “What is an award worth? An econometric assessment of the impact of awards on employee performance” Institute for Empirical Research in Economics University of Zurich, Working Paper Series, ISSN 1424-0459, Working Paper No. 411, May 2009
  • RAISE Project (lists of awards) – Recognition of the Achievements of Women In Science, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine, http://raiseproject.org/

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