Hi everyone!

My name is Isabelle and I had the honour to be a part of the 2025 GHC Cohort. This year, we travelled to Chicago!

The conference was truly incredible: the energy, the people, and venue were like nothing I had ever experienced before. I learned so much from sessions and panels, networked with industry professionals, and collected so much company merchandise 😝. I also bonded with other SFU WiCS members during the planning phase, late night hotel meet-ups, and random city excursions. Truly, some unforgettable memories were made on the trip.

For those of you who are attending the conference in the future, here are some quick tips I have for you!

• Have a polished resume downloaded onto your phone for online applications and a couple printed resumes (maybe 5-10, not 20 like I had…)
• Connect with your fellow GHC contacts early and help each other with logistical planning! Everything is way more fun with friends.
• Follow the GHC hashtags on LinkedIn and GHC groups on Facebook. People always create GHC related groups many months before the conference that unlock meet-ups and after-party events that you can go to during the conference.
• Attend sessions! When you get tired from walking around the venue, find any session to sit in and learn something new. I gained the most information from sessions I did not plan to attend beforehand.
• Sign up for BrainDates! These are super cool 1-1 or 1-many networking sessions with peers and mentors. It is much easier to make meaningful connections this way than in huge recruiting halls.

I could go on and on, but I’ll keep this short for you all. If you’d like to see what the celebration was like, check out my vlog below! And if you have any questions at all, my dms are always open <3

Wishing you all the best with your GHC journeys.