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CUNY Experiential Learning Symposium

Amy Furman

WiTNY Director of Strategic Planning and

Operations

1. The Challenge

2. The Solution

3. WiTNY Winternships

4. Outcomes

5. What’s Next

% of Women Majors, by Field

The Challenge

Sources: National Science Foundation, American Bar Association, American Association of Medical Colleges

Medical School

Law School

Physical Sciences

Computer Science

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Curriculum

CareerCommunity

Innovate curriculum to get more young

women started on their computer

science education and interested in

continuing a career in tech

Paid work experiences and

support to give young

women the professional

experiences they need to

remain interested in tech be

successful in their future

careers

Programmatic opportunities

for young women in tech to

meet and form a network

with tech professionals

and each other

The Solution

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• A resume-worthy experience that is

transformational for WiTNY students and has a low

barrier to entry for employers.

• A Winternship is a paid, three-week mini-internship

experience during the January academic recess,

geared towards first- and second-year students and

meant to serve as a student’s “first foot in the door.”

• Each tech company curates their own Winternship

to make it unique to their business.

• The core components include:

• 1) a group challenge project and

• 2) an immersive, cohort-based experience in

which students are exposed to multiple aspects

of the company outside of their project and

team

WiTNY Winternships

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• January 2017 Pilot: 5 Winterns at Verizon

• January 2018: 177 Winterns at 46 Companies

• January 2019: 289 Winterns at 60 Companies

WiTNY Winternships

Accuweather, ‘19

ActionIQ, ‘19

Aetna, ‘19

Analytical Flavor Systems, ‘19

AppNexus, ’18, ‘19

Arkadium Inc., ‘18

Artnet, ’18

ASAPP, Inc., ’19

Averon, ‘19

Betterment, ‘18

Bitly, ’18, ’19

Black Rock, ‘19

Blackstone, ’18, ‘19

Bloomberg LP, ‘19

BNY Mellon, ‘18

Citi Ventures, ’18, ‘19

CLEAR, ’19

Cognizant, ‘19

Collibra, ’18

Company (Formerly GCT), ‘18, ’19

Cornell Tech K-12, ‘19

Credit Suisse, ’18, ’19

Deloitte, ’19

Dow Jones, ’18, ‘19

EEVO, ’18

Etsy, ’19

Exiger, ’18, ’19

Fiera Capital, ‘19

FocusVision, ‘18

Frog, ’18

General Assembly, ‘19

Girls Scouts of America, ‘19

Group Nine Media, ‘19

Guggenheim Museum, ‘19

Haven Life (owned by MassMutual) , ‘18

Hospital for Special Surgery, ’18, ‘19

IBM, ’18, ‘19

Infor , ‘18

Intersection, ’18, ‘19

JPMC, ’19

Kargo, ’18, ‘19

KPMG, ‘19

Landit, ‘18

LinkedIn, ’18, ‘19

Managed by Q, ‘18

Mastercard, ’18, ‘19

MediaMath, ’18

Moody’s, ‘19

Morgan Stanley, ’18, ‘19

Mount Sinai, ’19

MTA Metro-North Railroad, ’18

New York Cares, ’19

Numina, ‘19

NY Foundling, ’19

NYC FIRST, ’19

Oath (Yahoo, Tumblr & AOL), ‘18

OppenheimerFunds, ’18, ‘19

Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, , ‘18

Peloton, ‘19

Pfizer, ’18, ‘19

Ready Set Rocket, , ’18, ’19

Rubicon MD, ‘19

RWJBarnabas Health, , ’18, ‘19

Satori Consulting, ‘18

Simons Foundation, ’18

Society of Women Coders, ‘19

Teachers Pay Teachers, ’18, ’19

Teladoc Health, ‘19

The HOPE Program, ‘19

The Student Leadership Network, ‘19

Thomson Reuters, ‘18

Turner, ‘18

Two Sigma Investments, LP, ‘18

Two Sigma Ventures, ’18

Union Realtime LLC, ’18

UN International Computing Center, ‘19

United Way, ’19

URBAN-X, ‘19

Verizon, ‘17, ‘18, ‘19

Warby Parker, ’18, ’19

WebMD, ‘19

Xerox Corporation, ‘18

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Total Student Applications: 868

Total Students Matched: 289

• 39% Freshmen

• 39% Sophomores

• 23% Juniors

• 79% CS tech-related major/minor

• 17% (47) former Winterns

• 29% (83) former Summer Guild

• 7% Community College students

Company Hosts: 60

• 43 For-profit companies

• 13 Non-profit companies

• 4 Startups

WiTNY Winternships, 2019

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Outcomes

2018

• 54% of Winterns secured a summer

internship in tech

• 50% at their Winternship host site

• This is compared to the 3.6% of

WiTNY students that previously had

success in securing summer

internships in tech

2019: TBD

25%

3.6% 3.6%

47%

58%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

Industry ReportedAverage

CUNY Rising SophomoreWomen

CUNY Rising JuniorWomen

Students with Summer Tech Internships

Without Winternships With Winternships

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64%

55%

92%

100% 100%

52% 52%

65% 65%

86%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

CS Men CS Women WiTNY Applicants WiTNY Other WiTNY Winternships+

White Black/Hispanic

Preliminary: Impacts of Winternships on 1-year Retention in CS• Numbers are currently too small for statistical relevance

• Source: OIRA via CUNY First Database, WiTNY Program Data

Outcomes

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What’s Next

Scale• Increase number of students and employer

participants

Preparation• Host on-boarding sessions for employer partners

• Improve student training to account for unfamiliarity

with work paperwork and provide ample

opportunity to practice working on teams.

Logistics• Consider introducing Winterns and Employers in

advance of the Winternship and/or having

Employers play a hand in selecting students.

• Hone application and matching algorithm

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We will raise our hands. To ask tough questions. To give insightful answers. To offer

help. We will start conversations.

We will raise expectations. We will elevate each other—to be better at what we do and

who we are. We will work hard, together.

We are a team. We are dedicated to transforming the workforce. We are

women and their allies.

We are in this for the long haul—for a marathon, not a sprint. We will cheer from the sidelines. We will pick you up if you fall.

We will celebrate with you at the finish line. And then we will

start training for the next challenge.

This is the future of tech.

This is digital enthusiasm.

This is WiTNY.