Sunday, September 29, 2013

Reflecting on Week One

Fancy Fridays

Apparently the instructors dress up on Fridays as a way of reversing the typical office environment, since they are wearing casual clothing Monday - Thursday. It was a bit of a shock to see them all walk into the room Friday morning with button down shirts, jackets, and slacks. 

The Sorting

One thing I haven't yet mentioned is that we were "sorted" into houses earlier in the week, by which I mean we numbered off until we were divided into five groups of 5 - 6 people each: Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, Slytherin, and Dumbledore's Army. By total chance, I ended up in Ravenclaw! This is ridiculously exciting to me. I actually have a Ravenclaw shirt, which I wore to class the next day and it earned our house five points for "taking it really seriously." Our head of house is Cynthia, who is an amazing instructor and an great role model. You can read more about her in her awesome profile on the Hackbright website (scroll down a bit to get to the instructors).

Silicon Chef

We also have a really cool group of people in Ravenclaw. The six of us are going to be a team at the hardware hackathon Silicon Chef next weekend. So excited! I've never done anything with hardware ever, and before Hackbright I had heard about the hackathon but basically thought I couldn't possibly go to it. Then the instructors were like, "We are doing an intro workshop that you can come to and then the hackathon will be really easy." So that's that. If they say I will be ready for a hackathon, I guess it must be true. 

This particular hackathon is going to be mostly women and very beginner-friendly. It is also not very competitive, which makes me feel more comfortable. Furthermore, it is not a 24-hours straight type of hackathon. We will go all day Saturday, be forced to leave by 8pm, and then we will start up again at 10am the next morning. They are providing food and tshirts, and we even get a free arduino kit just for showing up. I'm excited to find out if hardware is something I would be interested in exploring further.

Recent Exercises

On Thursday I paired with Breanna, a math teacher. Unsurprisingly, we look at coding challenges with exactly the same approach. We are practically the same person on that front. It was really fun working our way through the problems together. On Thursday we made our own implementation of several functions, such as len(), which finds the length of a list, and append(), which adds something to the end of a list. 

Fridays are sort of a study hall day. It's a time to go back through exercises you feel like you didn't quite understand, or try a new challenge, or try coding on your own, or try to get something set up on your own laptop so that you can code at home more easily. Breanna and I stuck together on Friday also and we did a really fun challenge where we had to write a program that takes a file of text and counts the number of a's, b's, c's, etc and reports those counts back to you. We felt really awesome after we figured out a way to do it, but Nick started asking us questions about how many times we were having the program go through the file. Slowly, little by little, we changed how the program worked so that it was as efficient as possible. It was really fun and we learned a lot by having Nick ask us questions and then talking to each other about how to fix each little problem.

Happy Hour

At 5:00 on Friday, we stopped working and brought out the alcohol. Luckily there was a small group of women who don't really like drinking, so we banded together and talked a lot about Harry Potter, Joss Whedon, Goodreads, and general geekery, among other things. I had a really great time with everyone and there were some entertaining interjections from some tipsy (read: drunk) people. I also gushed about my wedding to the people who were really into the idea of a geek wedding, so that was fun too. It's always nice to be appreciated for your eccentricities. 

I'm Super Annoying

We each have to give a lightning talk (5 to 10 minutes) about something vaguely related to tech. Obviously I signed up for the first date available (Oct 8) because I am super annoying. It's also partly because I want to get mine over with and not be compared with people giving their talks before me. I've been looking around at topics and I think I may do mine on Blender, an open-source 3D modeling program that you can control using Python (the main programming language we do at Hackbright). We'll see. Either way, it's interesting and I will enjoy looking into it more. Mostly spending the weekend relaxing and catching up on sleep/life. 

Tomorrow will be a long day. After class I am going to the intro to arduino workshop until pretty late at night. Hopefully I'll be able to post on Tuesday. Looking forward to more shenanigans and hacking!

Thursday, September 26, 2013

Hackbright in the News Today

Not sure how long this link will work, but the SF Chronicle and SFgate.com ran a story today about Hackbright, which is really interesting and features a not-super-flattering photo of me and some more flattering photos of my awesome classmates. It's an interesting read.

I had an amazing day at Hackbright - learned a ton, had a blast, didn't get terribly worn out. Success! More details sometime this weekend.

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Why I Won't See You Until Mid-December / Ava Has a Major Transformation

First of all, I am exhausted. Seriously. I just had to say that.

I Guess I'll See You in Three Months:

The instructors at Hackbright have suggested that we tell our family and friends that we will see them mid-December. I am starting to understand why. There have been many changes in the last few days, but the following changes are factors in why I am kind of unresponsive to texts/emails lately:

1. The number of emails I get per day has increased dramatically
2. The amount of time I have during the day to respond to emails has decreased dramatically
3. The amount of brainpower I have left at the end of the day has decreased dramatically
4. My desire to look at a screen at the end of the day has decreased dramatically

I am extremely fortunate in that I have about 20 people who love me and care about me so much that they actually want to hear, on a regular basis, about how my life is going. I really appreciate that and I need the support. The only downside is that right now I have so much to tell and not nearly enough time to tell it to 20 different people. Thus, I am blogging. If I don't see or talk to you until Christmas, I really will miss you very much. But right now I am making it a priority to put all my focus into this crazy opportunity I have, and I think that is a good choice.

My Transformation:

The Ava that is writing this blog post is so different from the Ava that wrote the last blog post (approx 48 hours ago), that you would hardly recognize her. Before I explain what has changed, I need to first point out something I've noticed about being insecure/timid/unsure. When I feel insecure, I also feel insecure about being insecure. In other words, I don't want to admit that I'm feeling insecure because I am embarrassed that I am insecure. 

So even though my confidence has shot up in the last two days (yay!), it's still hard to talk about the details of what it really feels like to be insecure. But I want to be completely honest in this blog like my hero Portia de Rossi (seriously, read her book now. Now!), so I am going to tell myself that no one is reading this and just be as honest as I possibly can. I think this will be therapeutic for me, and maybe someday it will help someone who is feeling insecure.

I do not think of myself as being a very insecure person in general. I feel pretty confident that I am a good person and that I have something to offer to society. But there have certainly been times in my life so far where I feel incredibly insecure about something in particular. Before I started at Hackbright, I felt extreeeeeeemely insecure about programming. I would accomplish something and think, "Wow, that was so cool! I am awesome!" And then a minute later I would think, "This accomplishment was child's play and I will never be a real programmer because I'm not smart enough." And I would go up and down like a roller coaster.

So I started Hackbright feeling very small, powerless, insecure, and scared, like a pathetic baby bunny but less endearing than a pathetic baby bunny. When they told us, "You are supposed to be here," I realized that they would not bother to say that if everyone else was super confident and comfortable and I was the only one feeling like a misfit. This must mean that almost everyone was feeling small, powerless, insecure and scared. Realizing that everyone else was in the same boat as me was a huge relief. So even on day one of Hackbright, I started feeling better about myself.

Then, something crazy happened. I decided that I was going to ask questions, even if I felt stupid or dorky or out of touch with the world by asking them. And furthermore, I decided I would ask any question that occurred to me, and I would ask more and more questions until I understood what the hell was going on. What I did not expect was that asking questions would actually make me feel way more confident.

Disclaimer: Liz is an amazing instructor and so far I have found most of her explanations to be quite helpful. That said, yesterday Liz started explaining what git and github are, and she might as well have been speaking Swahili for all that I understood. Everyone else was patiently listening, which I assumed meant that they all got what she was saying. But determined to understand despite how much everyone else would surely roll their eyes at me for being so stupid, I asked a question. And then I asked a follow-up question because I didn't understand the answer. And then another question because I was still confused. At this point we had basically gone from a lecture by Liz to a conversation between me and Liz in front of the whole class. So I apologized to the class for monopolizing the conversation, but to my surprise, everyone started essentially saying, "No! Keep asking questions! I'm totally lost too." 

Wow. Tons of other people were just as stupid as me, and they were too shy to ask those stupid questions because then everyone would know how stupid they are. And by that, I obviously mean that they weren't stupid questions in the first place. None of us was stupid. We all felt stupid. We all felt shy about feeling stupid. This realization hit me like a truck to the face.

I went home yesterday feeling emotionally awesome and physically wasted. My physical state was largely influenced by the fact that I had hardly slept the night before and by the tech talk we had after class that extended our day and left me little time to commute home and decompress before bed.

The Tech Talk:

Despite being sleep-deprived and tired out from a long day, the tech talk that we had right after that long day ended up being really awesome. A Hackbright graduate from last fall named Nicole came to talk about life before, during, and after Hackbright. She gave a great presentation because it was informative, interesting, funny, and audience-appropriate. In my head, I basically took what she said and boiled it down to this:

Nicole: I had never programmed and I didn't think I could program because I thought you had to be a certain type and I wasn't it. Then I tried it and realized it was awesome! Hackbright was stupid enough to let me in, so I spent 10 weeks trying to learn as much as possible and worrying that I would never get a job. Within a week of graduating Hackbright, I had three job offers. I decided to take the offer from EventBrite because they seemed like they had the best company culture. I felt super nervous about joining EventBrite and was worried that I was not smart enough. But they have an awesome setup for new programmers and they give you constant help and mentorship. Now I do all kinds of cool stuff at my job and I can't wait to learn more. Every project I take on seems like it is impossible and way harder than the last project. But I am getting used to that feeling, and I kind of like it.

After her talk I asked her how she had managed to get so many job offers so quickly, which conflicted with my previous understanding that it could potentially take several weeks/months to land a decent job after Hackbright if you weren't very good at technical interviews. It turns out that the Hackbright staff preps their partner companies ahead of time so that on Career Day and during interviews, they have a better understanding of who a Hackbright grad is. A Hackbright grad:
1. is smart
2. has proven that she is capable of solving complex problems
3. has very little experience in programming
4. knows the basic concepts behind programming
5. will need a specific type of mentoring/coaching during her first job
6. will become an awesome asset to her company after that company invests some time into her

So because the partner companies know this, they are not evaluating you in the same way as they would if they were doing a blind interview for a software engineer. Nicole got job offers from three partner companies. This made me feel like I will totally get a cool job after Hackbright because I will apply to a bunch of places and someone will love me and there will be sunshine and kittens.

My Confidence Level:

My confidence is really high right now. I had a great day and a great partner for pair programming. I am guessing that at some point (or points) in the future, my confidence will plummet again when I hit a wall that I can't seem to get past. But I feel good right now and I feel like I'm doing this right. Hackbright is exactly where I should be right now, and I am rocking it. Asking questions, being fearless(ish), enjoying a challenge, working my butt off, and having a damn good time. But if/when I hit a wall and my confidence disappears and I feel like a misfit and I don't think I can be a software engineer, I am going to try to be honest on this blog anyway. Wish me luck.

Signing off so that I can hibernate for the next several hours. Peace out.

Monday, September 23, 2013

Today was my first day at Hackbright!



A walk through my day:

Arrive at Hackbright and talk nervously/awkwardly with people as they trickle in. The instructors introduce themselves, we learn rules about Hackbright. We play a get-to-know-each-other game. Liz sends all male instructors/staff from the room and we have a "feelings" talk. Lunch (Most people leave to buy food; I stay and draw pictures on my name tag/chat with classmates). A brief play about how to pair program. We pair up and start working through Command Line Crash Course together. My partner is Ingrid and we rock it. We get quizzed by Christian (instructor) and clarify a few things. Ingrid and I do Blockly Maze. We rock it again. High fives after each success. Ingrid and I work on a problem from ProjectEuler.net. We get Nick (instructor) to help us put our solution on Github. End-of-day kindergarten circle. People ask questions and we wrap up the day. A bunch of us walk to BART together.

More about the feelings talk:

This was super helpful. First they said that we ARE supposed to be here, that we CAN do this, and that we should look around at the other people in the room and accept that we are going to cry at least once in front of each of these people. They also said that out of 500 applicants, we were chosen because they know we can do this, we seem like nice people who will help contribute to a positive support network, and because they were slightly terrified of us. Liz and Cynthia (the female instructors) tell us that there are things that women tend to have in common that can often get in the way of our success, and that this is why they have a program that is for women only. They added that we should definitely come talk to them when we are upset/overwhelmed/freaking out because they are like our "special mommies" that will hold our hand and help us through everything.

How I'm feeling now:

I'm exhausted. So much nervous energy, so much small talk with strangers, so many new rules to learn, so many faces and names to memorize, and so much concentration. I feel like I could sleep for 20 years. But I am so excited for tomorrow and I genuinely feel like I have friends at Hackbright. Everyone is fun and nice and interesting and smart and nonjudgemental. Plus, many of them are fans of HP, MLP, Star Wars, robots, math, and other fun things that I love.

The most important thing about today:

They told me I am supposed to be here......and I believe them.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

The Evil Voice Gets a Name

When I got my acceptance letter from Hackbright, I panicked. I had spent the last couple months desperately hoping that I would get in, and I honestly didn't have a plan B. But here I was, my heart racing like I just ran 10 blocks to get to the donut store before it closed for the day.* Don't get me wrong. I was super excited and started calling everyone I knew to tell them. But I was also sweating and shaking and it felt like I was being chased by a lion.

John said, "This is exactly what you've been hoping for! Why in the world are you panicking??" It took me a while to figure out an answer to that question, but I realized that a little voice in my head was telling me:

They think you are smart. You tricked them into letting you in and there's no going back now. They're going to figure out that you're not smart enough and they are going to regret letting you in. Maybe it was a mistake even. Maybe they sent the email accidentally. Either way, when you get there, you are going to fail. You won't be able to finish the program because it will be too hard and everyone will know you failed. You are not a programmer. You are not an engineer. You are not smart enough. You cannot do this. Everyone will be watching as you struggle and finally give up. Then they will know you were never smart enough to apply in the first place.

I knew that voice was my Impostor Syndrome, but I believed it anyway. I am working really hard on that, but from what I hear, it's not likely to ever go away. So I've decided to name the voice.

Here we go. Her name is Professor Umbridge, and I must not tell lies.


* Shut up. I'm not a runner, ok?