“The most impactful [diversity conference] that I’ve gone to was SDLC in Seattle in December of 2019. It was really cool, I went with five other GA students. There were a lot of different workshops that would start around 7-8 o’clock and we would go until 10-11 o’clock at night with breaks or snacks and lunch. Then we also had a speaker usually once a day. One of the coolest things about SDLC in particular was meeting kids from all over the country. I met kids that were in all different places on their journey in terms of D.E.I (Diversity Equity and Inclusion)…
“One of the most important things was having conversations about anything, and that’s still something I have yet to see anywhere else.”
Also, everybody was so willing to share their experiences and also willing to listen to people. For me, as a white straight male, I was still drawn into the conversation, which I thought was very important because I could’ve easily receded to the back of the room. But, there were people pulling me back in the conversation.”
Were there specific moments that stood out to you?
“The speakers were really cool, but I really enjoyed hearing the passion from some people. We had a talent show and a kid read poetry. Things like that were really interesting to see. It was around 2000 other kids, so that’s that’s a lot of people. Probably the most impactful thing was that all these kids were actually wanting to make change.”