Banana Piano and Becoming a Real Monkey

Fruity Music

First thing's first: I set up a banana piano at work on Monday. There is an empty desk behind me and I had just bought a Makey Makey from the Maker Faire last weekend and it just seemed natural for me to do this. For those unfamiliar with Makey Makey, it is a kit built on top of an arduino that allows you to create simple circuits with anything conductive (such as a human, a banana, or a bowl of water). You plug the Makey Makey into your computer and the circuits are programmed to activate your space bar and your arrow keys. So if you had a game of tetris open on your computer and you had the Makey Makey hooked up to a bunch of carrots, you could play tetris by touching the carrot that corresponds to the key you want to press.

Anyway, they suggested a banana piano, and they have a sweet little webpage that allows you to play five notes on a piano using the space bar and the arrow keys. So it is basically ready to go. I taped down a big strip of tin foil and hooked that up to the Makey Makey, and then I hooked up five bananas to the Makey Makey. So by putting one hand on the tin foil and using the other hand to tap the bananas, you complete the circuit and it plays a note.

I sent out an email saying that I had set up a piano made of bananas and that anyone who wanted to try it should stop by my desk. That was a really fun way to meet some people I hadn't talked to before. One person came over and said, "I'm going to have to start taking your emails at face value." I asked him to clarify and he added, "I thought you were using some lingo that I wasn't familiar with. I didn't realize you meant an actual piano made of actual bananas."

There are other things I want to do with the Makey Makey (at home, not at work), like play Adventure Ponies with bowls of water and make a piano out of five separate humans (each one being a different note). I heard one guy had his dogs sit on tin foil and he petted them to make music, but I haven't been able to make that work with our dogs yet. I have to play around a bit with their conductivity - like get them slightly wet or something. I'm a terrible dog mom.

An Offer I Couldn't Refuse

In other news, and almost as important as the banana piano, I got a full time offer from SurveyMonkey this week and I just signed my offer letter yesterday!!!!!!!!!!!! I am a real Monkey now!!!!!!!!! It was a match made in heaven. SurveyMonkey has been a really great place for me and I was really really really hoping for a full time offer.

This really is a dream come true. So I was very surprised that, much like when I got my acceptance letter to Hackbright, I felt a wave of inexplicable panic when I got my offer from SurveyMonkey. It doesn't make any sense at all. I have gotten very positive feedback from everyone I work with, I've accomplished a lot on my project in the last two months, and I love working there. But still, I keep getting hit with rushes of panic that I can't do this, that I am going to fail. The weirdest part is that this is by far the most panic I have felt since I started at SurveyMonkey, largely to the credit of my manager, my mentor, and my teammates who have been really supportive from the beginning. The good news is that I know this nonsensical panic is temporary because I have experienced it before and because I know I am right where I am supposed to be.

Hackbright Alums: Superwomen of Tech and Friendship

In light of Ashley McNamara's recent post about her Hackbright experience, there has been a long discussion on the alumni listserv about the founders, the instructors, and the students of Hackbright to date. To my knowledge, there are about 140 Hackbright alums, and many of us use the listserv to share job opportunities, programming resources, events, career advice, and emotional support, among other things.

Many of the alums, myself included, were very sad to hear that Ashley did not have a positive experience at Hackbright. I know she is not alone - Hackbright is not for everyone, and unfortunately some people do not do well in that environment. Later in this post I will highlight what I think makes a person a good fit for Hackbright, which will hopefully help prospective students make informed decisions.

My experience was incredible, as you know if you have read my previous posts. It is hard to describe just how much I learned there - both as a programmer and as a person. My classmates were fiercely smart, caring, determined, and hysterically funny. I saw them master an insane amount of learning material, build phenomenal projects, and climb mountains of self-doubt like a bunch of badasses.

My post-Hackbright job search was really, really tough, but I never could have done it without my Hackbright education and the support of my classmates and Hackbright mentors. Nearly everyone in my class has jobs now, and those who don't are either really picky (which I think is a good thing) or don't interview well (which may affect how long their job search takes, but not how successful they will be at their job when they find the right one).

I am so glad that SurveyMonkey really gets Hackbright. They understand that any given Hackbright Alum probably has little experience but knows the fundamentals, learns quickly, is extremely smart, knows how to communicate, refuses to give up, and isn't afraid to ask questions. Not every company understands this, and the job search can feel really demoralizing when you come up against a company who dismisses you right away for not having a computer science degree. But more and more companies are starting to realize how incredible these women are and how worthwhile it is to invest in them as junior developers.

In addition, our community sticks together and helps each other out. As one alum said, "Help will always be given at Hackbright to those who ask for it." And on that note, here are some qualities that I think made my classmates and me successful at Hackbright:

• Passion for problem-solving: Sometimes I do sudoku, kakuro, hashi, or kenken puzzles in bed to relax before I go to sleep. Not everyone is into that kind of puzzle, but most of my classmates got a thrill from breaking down a problem and solving it. In fact, most of them were really stubborn and would refuse to give up on any kind of logic puzzle because they knew they could solve it and they desperately wanted to.
• Desire to help others: When someone was struggling, I did my best to help. Whether it was an emotional struggle or a struggle to understand a concept. A lot of the time, in the process of explaining something to someone, I learned the concept better. Many times I discovered that I didn't understand a concept as well as I thought I did, and was able to work through it with a classmate or instructor. Reaching out to my peers also created a very meaningful bonding experience with my classmates, without whom I could never have gotten through Hackbright.
• Willingness to ask others for help: I had to be vulnerable with my classmates, my instructors, and my mentors in order to get the help I needed. There were times when I felt so lost that I wasn't sure where to begin. I forced myself to ask questions - stupid questions, questions that had already been asked before, followup questions when I had just asked a question seconds ago. This doesn't come naturally to me, but I was able to force myself to do it. I still use this skill now and I don't think I could be a successful developer without it.
• Open mind:  My mind used to be so closed off that it took me years to even give programming a try. But once I finally discovered how much I loved to code, I realized that I needed to be more open to possibility. I tried not to go into Hackbright with a lot of preconceived notions; I did my best to face each new frontier with an open mind, and I was pleasantly surprised many times. For example, I was blown away by how much I loved hacking hardware at a large women's hackathon put on by Hackbright early in our program. 
• Fightiness: I'm sure there is an actual English word for this, but I like to color outside the lines now and then. Hackbright was an invaluable launch pad for me, but I had to fight for my success. They are a powerful set of resources, but they couldn't make me learn or make me get a job. I had to take ownership of my education, pour sweat and blood into my project, and get back on that damn horse many, many times throughout my job search. And that horse kicked me in the face on the daily.

To be clear, you don't have to be a warrior princess in order to succeed at Hackbright. In fact, I was like a frightened puppy right before Hackbright started. You do need to be able to, with a lot of support, take your education and career into your own hands. But the best part of Hackbright was that I didn't have to go it alone. My mentors, my instructors, my classmates, and the alums are all valuable resources on whom I continue to rely almost every day. 

Hackbright changes a lot from one class to the next, and I don't know what its future holds. But I had an amazing time there and I now have a lifelong bond with this incredible community.

Photos of the New Office!

I feel like a tool walking around taking pictures of the office, so please forgive the poor quality of these photos - I tried to take them nonchalantly. Just going to dump them here because I don't have much time to write. Work is going really really well! I love SurveyMonkey!

view from my desk:

New Office and My First Release!

Today was our first day in the new office!! It's a gorgeous building with brand new interior/exterior design, brand new furniture, sit/stand desks for everyone, beautiful conference rooms, game room with ping pong/xbox/air hockey/pool table, and much more. I love my desk! When we arrived this morning, each desk had a pair of SurveyMonkey flip flops with a note that said "We are so flippin' excited to be in our new office and we hope you are too!" I have yet to break in the air hockey table, but I think it'll happen soon.

Also, there is a release this week for the internal tool I'm working on, and it will be my first release! Had my one-on-one meeting with my manager, David, this afternoon and I feel pretty awesome. David is a great manager. I feel like he puts exactly the right amount of pressure on me and I don't even feel like a dumb baby when I ask him really basic questions. He does a very good job of explaining things without condescending.

At the old office, they put me at a desk near my team but not really in the same little circle as the rest of the team. At the new office, since they actually have room for everyone, they put me with my team. So now I get to socialize more with my coworkers, which I really like. And it is also much more organic to communicate/ask questions/collaborate.

Ok, time for bed. Gotta get my sleep if I'm going to monkey around all day. EHH?? [elbows you in the arm]

My Coding Birthday

One year ago today, I reluctantly opened an account on Codecademy.com wondering if maybe this whole programming business that John and Lindsey were so obsessed with was worth a try. That night I had quite a shock: coding was not only fun, but thrilling! I laughed maniacally like an evil scientist every time I watched the words and symbols I wrote come alive.

One year later, I am a Hackbright alum, a contracting monkey of surveys, a teacher of JavaScript, a Woman in Tech, and one happy lady engineer! It took a LOT of help to get where I am, but I bootstrapped my career. I learned a lot, worked my butt off, faced my fears, and beat the odds. I will always keep learning - that is something all software engineers must do. But I intend to do more than just that.

The Women in Tech community is overwhelmingly supportive and giving. But the number of women who are just now discovering how great programming is (and how great they are at programming) is staggering. And they will need just as much support as I did if they are going to bootstrap their careers. I wish I could give every one of them what my instructors, mentors, and classmates gave me during and after Hackbright. I will certainly do as much as I can. More on that to come.

How am I celebrating my coding birthday? In bed, sick. It's ok though. I have a hot pink sherpa blanket, two fuzzy dogs, and a good book to keep me company until John gets home.

Have a good night, everypony!

New Roller Coasters

Unsurprisingly, my first day and a half of looking at actual SurveyMonkey code and trying to figure out how everything worked was a new roller coaster. It went something like this:

1. This is terrifying.
2. It's cool. It will just take a little while to get familiar with their code.
3. Look, curly braces and functions and stuff. I know how to do this. It's cool.
4. It's cool. There are only like 100 files that interact with each other and I have no idea how.
5. OH MY GOD there are like 100 files that interact with each other and I have no idea how!
6. What are all these weird functions that I've never heard of????
7. It's ok. We're just going to google some things and see what we can find out.
8. WHY DOESN'T GOOGLE KNOW WHAT THIS FUNCTION IS???
9. I thought I knew JavaScript, but clearly I don't.
10. I forgot how to computer!!
11. Ok, I will ask my mentor for some help.
12. Wait, you're telling me that a lot of this code is specific to the SurveyMonkey framework?
13. Wait, it would be super weird if I were able to figure this out on my own?
14. Wait, it takes all new people a while to learn the ins and outs of your MVC framework?
15. Oh, that's what that stands for? Oh, that's where that function is coming from?
16. Ok! I can maybe look at the code on my own and understand some things.
17. So what happens if I comment this out?
18. OMG IT RUNS!!!
19. Ok, so why doesn't this section work?
20. I am amazing. Look at me, coding and stuff.
21. WTF? Why doesn't this work?

The rest was mostly me narrowing in on what part of the code was throwing an error. And then I went home for the weekend. Want to hear something really shocking? At no point this week did I cry or feel like crying. There were times when I was a little panicked or felt kinda stupid, but I didn't have any breakdowns. It's not because I am a good enough programmer that I am past those breakdowns. It's that I have learned that this is hard and I am smart and I have resources. I'm sure there will still be breakdowns, but I don't anticipate them happening regularly anymore. 

Just like I felt at Hackbright, I feel like right now I am exactly where I am supposed to be. 

My First Week So Far

I can hardly put into words how happy I am to be at SurveyMonkey. Here are some reasons in no particular order:

• The people are super nice and I have yet to meet a brogrammer who works here. Everyone is approachable, humble, and helpful.
• They take the monkey theme to a level I am very comfortable with. On top of their employee directory, MonkeyBook, and the plethora of plush monkeys and plush bananas of various sizes stashed in every corner, they also named their conference rooms after fictional monkey characters such as Marcel (Friends) and Mr. Teeny (The Simpsons). Everyone's desk is labeled with a banana name tag, and in my case a "green banana" name tag because I am new (see photo below). But best of all, they name their projects after species of monkeys, such as Howler and Rhesus. 
• The project I'm working on is called Mandrill. I love mandrills. They are the most sexually dimorphic monkey, meaning that the males look very distinct from the females. But the most interesting fact about them, of course, is why their faces are so colorful, which I happily shared with my manager when he asked me what interesting facts I knew about mandrills.

• My mentor Sara is super awesome and amazing and fantastic. She has been checking in with me to make sure I'm not overwhelmed. It's even comforting just knowing that she is nearby, even if I'm not asking for help, because she is like my safety net.
• The project I'm working on seems interesting. I haven't written any code yet, just looked through documentation and specifications. But it seems like it will be doable maybe. Maybe. 
• I discovered the SurveyMonkey freezer. It is full of ice cream. Don't worry, I'm not stuffing myself with treats all day long.

My green banana name tag

Hopefully I can report more this weekend. I am trying to get into the actual code right now so I may or may not have something interesting to share on my next post.