Question One: Why are you interested in programming? What have you done to expose yourself to programming so far?
I am interested in programming because I feel happiest when I’m solving problems and have a concrete work product to show for it. What I have loved about past positions in the field of librarianship is when they have allowed me to tinker with technology. At one position, I was able to teach myself how to spin-up a LAMP server (although I found out later there were easier ways to do it) using Apache and Maven, in order to create a DSPACE repository. My exposure to programming so far has mostly been when I need to get something accomplished in my job, and have to teach myself enough to make it happen. If I’m having an issue that I can’t figure out with one of the WordPress sites I manage, I can search for a solution someone else found, and figure out enough to implement it. That makes my education feel spotty and haphazard. I want to know how to solve problems for myself, without resorting to someone else’s solutions. I tell my students that they have to go to the source material and read it for themselves, because they have unique perspectives and may read something new and exciting that contradicts or further informs the accepted reading of an article, book or idea. I think I have something unique to offer, and I want to learn enough of the basics to know enough to know what I don't know. Right now, I could be hideously uninformed, but I'd feel more confident in my ability to figure something out than my actual abilities warrant. Also, my children are interested in coding and robotics, so I’ve done some of their week of code activities with them.
Question Two: If you are accepted into our program, where do you see your career in 5 years?
Quick aside: This is hard to answer. Five years ago, I thought I would be an instructional designer. Five years before that I thought I would be an English professor, and five years before that, I was pretty sure I was going to grow up to be a software engineer. There is a really great article in Nautilus about how fMRI research by Hal Hershfield and his colleagues revealed that people often think of their future selves as strangers. I know who I am now, and what I'd want for my future, but my future self may want something completely different.
In five years from now, after being accepted into the ADA Developers Academy, I would hope I’d be four years into a position developing solutions to interesting programming dilemmas. I’d also like to give back, maybe serve as a mentor for another aspiring woman or gender fluid/non-binary developer or become involved with ADA in a volunteer capacity.
I’ve always had a problem with dreaming big, unrealistic dreams. Like, maybe I’ll develop a social media platform that allows geospatial tagging of augmented reality comments on controversial printed media, fliers and propaganda. I had the idea that made me want to learn how to develop apps when I was looking at one of the thousand billboards in my part of Alabama that used blatantly misleading information to make people feel bad about considering an abortion and then directed them to crisis pregnancy hotlines. I though it would be great to be able to tag additional information, or use an interface like adobe spark’s post function to create a corrected image that could be linked to the location. But ideas are easier than implementation, and as I dug into the how I could accomplish it, I realized I was in way over my head. So maybe I’ll be able to bring a crazy, big idea to life. Big data and precision medicine are big right now, in the medical world, maybe I can work somewhere that hopes to harness big data to improve health outcomes. One element of my personality that doesn't bother me terribly is that I throw myself into whatever I'm currently doing, and find reasons to be excited and happy wherever I'm at, as long as I'm learning and challenging myself.
Question Three: After reading Ada's Vision, Mission and Inclusivity Statement, how will you contribute to Ada's vision for an inclusive and diverse community? http://adadevelopersacademy.org/program
I likely bring far more diversity to my current role at a medical school in Alabama than I would in Seattle, where being bi, cis-female, polyamorous, aneurotypical and an atheist are fairly common. I'm trained as a safezone advocate for my university, and living in the deep south I have learned how to burnish the rough edges of my radical progressive nature. (I say radical because my bachelor degree in literature focused on queer and critical race theory as my disciplinary specialization, which isn't the path most people take to librarianship or software development).
To be honest, I think the best way I can contribute to Ada's vision for an inclusive and diverse community isn't by being who I am, but by fighting against the less inclusive parts of what I appear to be. The biggest contribution I can offer as a a loud, excitable pseudo-extrovert with a light-skinned phenotype is to step back and provide space for people who are othered or silenced to speak for themselves and tell their own stories. I feel very strongly that since I have so many areas in which I am privileged, it's my duty to use that greater privilege to clear enough room for others at the table.
Question Four: Tell us about a time you made a mistake that you learned a lot from. If you encountered the situation again, what would you do differently?
I received my graduate and undergraduate degrees within a few months of eachother, because I made a huge, life-changing mistake. When I transferred to Miami University, in Oxford Ohio, I had already completed all of my general education requirements (including foreign language). When I discoveredd that my sign language classes did not transfer as foreign language, but instead, were considered education classes, I appealed to have them, and some of my other high-level english classes reassessed by the transfer credits committee. I received a notice that my transfer credit re-evaluation was confirmed, and didn't think anything more about it. I walked at graduation, and went on to complete all of the requirements for my master of library science degree, only to try to graduate and discover that I was ineligible, since I didn't have a bachelor's degree on file. I thought it was a mistake, so called the Registrar's office at Miami to get them to send verification of my degree, only to discover I didn't have one because I hadn't completed my language requirement. So I taught myself enough French to pass a College Level Examination Program (CLEP) test. I'd like to say that was the last time that I let thinking I had done everything I needed to do cause a minor inconvenience to become a major issue, but it was a lesson that it took several different mistakes in order for me to see the overall pattern and learn the very important necessity of not assuming that everything will be okay because I "did what I was supposed to." Not double or triple-checking that my understanding of the requirements being fulfilled and accurate has caused hijinx with medical bills, professional society projects and even afterschool activities for my children. Thankfully, I can now recognize the signs for this kind of mistake, and take extra steps to not assume that I know what's going on. Just as I could have logged in and done a degree audit after I received notice they'd accepted my petition, I can log in to my insurance carrier to see what is and isn't covered when a claim is made, and how much I owe before anyone sends me a bill.