How many software developers do you know who can also plié and chassé?
3rd year Shir Yehoshua is a techie whose computer skills have landed her positions in various companies and organizations. At UChicago, Shir is a board member of the Council of University Programming and has helped in the development and maintenance of the COUP website. You may have even been the recipient of Shir’s help during her stint at ResCom (Residential Computing Assistant) where she assisted students with their IT issues. Shir, who is fittingly a Math and Computer Science major, was also involved in the creation of sites as an intern for Mightybell, a social-networking startup situated in Palo Alto, California.
Having grown up in Silicon Valley (dubbed the “high tech capital of the world”) with parents who are both in the technology sector, Shir has always been surrounded by computers and technology. Although many are intimidated by technology or regard it as an incomprehensible enigma, Shir was never scared of computers and was instead drawn to them, attempting to solve technological problems whenever she could.
But when she’s not behind a computer, you’ll likely find her participating in a mélange of dance styles as a part of several dance groups on campus. Shir has been dancing for almost her entire life, starting with ballet classes at 5 years old and then later branching off to jazz, lyrical, hip-hop and cultural Indian dance. The styles of dance and her level of involvement at UChicago are equally as diverse and impressive. The Co-Captain of the award-winning Raas team, a type of high-energy Indian folk dance, Shir also acts as the Co-Director of Maya which fuses Western and Eastern styles of dance. To top it off, she is a member of the PhiNix hip-hop dance crew and Dance Council, a group that overlooks all the dance groups on campus.
Shir admits that she does not know what life is like without dance. She has found that if she goes more than 2 weeks without dancing, she begins to experience a tinge of sadness and frustration. Dance acts as her outlet to release stress, anger and resentment and transform these negative feelings into creativity and energy.
When it comes to her career, Shir visualizes herself in the tech industry and one day starting her own tech company. This upcoming summer, she will be an intern at Google, working in the search team. Although her job may not involve dancing, Shir affirms that she will never lose sight of dancing, staying true to the quote, “Never give up something you can’t go a day without thinking about”.
Picture courtesy of Darren Leow
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at U Chicago chapter.