Talking to industry analysts and technology workers, the question of industry-specific IT comes up a lot — industry cloud or industry analytics, for instance. Health insurance companies desire plug-and-play technology built for their models, their problems, their goals — not for the fashion or restaurant industries. Right now, few companies can deliver this type of IT, but a “fusing” trend in computer science education bodes well for its future.

We hit the ground and spoke with Ashley Conard, board member at the Anita Borg Institute for Women, and her sister, Chelsea Conard, junior economics and computer science student at DePauw University, during the Grace Hopper Conference for Women in Computing to get the lowdown.

“For myself, I started in undergraduate really thinking economics, business — that was my place. And computer science didn’t quite make sense,” Chelsea told co-host Rebecca Knight (@knightrm) of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team.

She said that her decision to blend the disciplines has exposed her to fascinating possibilities — some of which she has seen at the Grace Hopper event. “There are companies here that are fusing economics and computer science in ways that I could have never imagined,” she said. “We can look at problems technically, and we can morph statistics and big data, and there’s just so much power behind computer science that I firmly believe that it can really be blended with all types of topics to make differences.”

Mixed major mentor

Ashley said that finding a mentor with the computer science plus x skillset students are interested in can help them define their career goals.

“As you start looking for mentors, you say, ‘I’m interested in computers, and I don’t really know what I want to do, but this is where I come from, this is what I’ve been interested in, this is what I want to learn about,'” she said. If students have this conversation with enough pros, they can likely connect with someone who fits the bill or knows someone else who does, she said.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of the Anita Borg Institute’s Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing.

Photo by SiliconANGLE