DEV Community: Sabrina Koumoin

5 Tips for Black Women Learning How to Code

Sabrina Koumoin — Fri, 23 Sep 2022 03:05:08 +0000

Black women face unique challenges when attempting to start a career as developers or software engineers. We are often doubted and underestimated, and consequently suffer from lack of representation and made to work twice as hard. YET, we are more than capable of excelling in the field! If you are a Black woman who'd like to learn how to code and become a software engineer (or if you know one), here are 5 tips to help you out:

See yourself there Find Black women in tech on social media (Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn) and follow them! Keeping your goals within sight will motivate you to achieve them. Seeing women who look like you succeeding in their tech careers will help you remember that you are just as capable.
Use free learning resources There is a pervading belief that you must have a computer science degree or pay for an expensive bootcamp to become a software engineer. While every educational path has its own merits, you can achieve your goal by leveraging free educational resources online such as free coding bootcamps like the Ada Developers Academy!
Don't doubt your intelligence Another pervading belief is that you need to be super smart or some sort of math genius to learn how to code. The truth is, unless you're in a super specialized field, most software development jobs require relatively little math. Genius or not, you will be fine! Coding may get challenging but it's achievable so I believe you should practice and learn ways to be kind to yourself while learning. One way to do this is to stop yourself when you say something negative about your learning journey and reframe it with a more positive statement. For example, try replacing "'I'm so dumb', 'this was a dumb mistake', or 'I should've fixed this by now'" to "I'm learning something new and stepping outside of my comfort zone so I need to be patient with myself."
Recognize that Imposter Syndrome is lying to you Imposter syndrome is the belief that you are a fraud or don't deserve to be successful. It might make you question your decision to even attempt your development career and nip it in the bud. But guess what? Imposter syndrome is one big liar. You deserve your success because you've worked hard to achieve it. Don't feel unworthy of good things because you're not perfect - no one is.
Hurtful comments are not your truth As a Black woman in tech, you might unfortunately have to experience people doubting you in various ways. other people's doubts about your skills or motives, however, only speaks to their limiting beliefs and prejudices, not your true ability. Whatever they say or think, refuse to accept it as your reality because it isn't. You know who you are, you know what you can do, and you know what you are worth. Their opinions don't matter.

I hope this encourages you to step up and take ownership of your tech career! Have a good one :)

To improve your technical skills, become a concept collector!

Sabrina Koumoin — Fri, 03 Dec 2021 03:07:44 +0000

One of the best pieces of engineering advice my dad ever gave me was: "𝐅𝐨𝐜𝐮𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐚 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐩𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫. 𝐈𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐚 𝐦𝐚𝐩, 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐰𝐚𝐲".

I love this so much because it's easy to get overwhelmed in tech with all the coding languages and tools available to us. But when you think of yourself as a concept-collector you can start to identify patterns in the things you're learning.

For example, I noticed that no matter what framework I use, web development is essentially made up of these building blocks:

🌄 Views -> What's being displayed to the user

🎢 Events -> The different things that a user 'causes to happen'

🚨 Event Handling -> What we do after the user causes things to happen

🗳 Storage -> Data/information needs to be stored and retrieved

🚏 Routing and Controllers -> Allows us to create conceptual locations for where data/information should live

⚒ Optimization -> Making things run as smoothly as possible

In other words:

The user needs to see something
The user needs to interact with what they see and make things happen
When they cause something to happen I need to decide what occurs next
My data needs to be stored somewhere, and I need to be able to access it
I use routes to allow the user to access data kept in different locations
I optimize to make things run smoother

When you learn something new, try to grasp the deeper meaning of what's being done. 𝘊𝘰𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘶𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘺𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘹𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘢 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘯𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘯 𝘦𝘯𝘥, 𝘢 𝘸𝘢𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘩 𝘢 𝘱𝘶𝘳𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘦. If you notice these patterns you'll be able to switch between frameworks and languages much more easily and confidently!

If you liked this blog post feel free to check out more of my tech content on Instagram, YouTube and Twitter and TikTok!

How to remember everything you learn in code

Sabrina Koumoin — Wed, 01 Dec 2021 07:54:23 +0000

SPOILER ALERT: you can't!

And the best part is that to be a good developer you don't even have to!

😕 I'm sharing this because at some point in my developer journey I thought I needed to remember everything I learned by heart.

💡 But we don't know every single word in English and we can still speak it right? That's because to speak a language, whether it be a natural language or a programming language, if you focus on the most important and commonly used words you will be considered fluent. Everything else is secondary and can be looked up in the dictionary. For ex, if you are travelling to Spain and can't speak Spanish won't you rather learn how to say "Where is the bus?" than "Xylophones are amazing?"

😍 Syntax + Grammar rules + Core Vocabulary > Random Vocabulary

🙂 The same applies to programming! Some things are like core vocabulary that will help you get around, and some things can be kept in your notes for reference only when you need them. Not everything you learn should be memorized. If you won't use it on a consistent basis turn it into a code snippet with a thorough explanation and you'll be fine.

💡 For example, instead of trying to memorize all the methods of Arrays, you can learn the most essential (adding, deleting, slicing) by heart and read/make notes about the rest and know what they do. Only memorize on a need-to-know basis.

😋 Do you take a lot of notes when you code? What apps do you use? Share in the comments!

This post was originally posted here:https://brinascode.com/ac263e38615e47309a955302c0293723