I began coding because...
My partner and I were discussing moving away from New York City and I knew that I did not want to continue working in my previous field outside of NYC. A bandmate of mine told me about a bootcamp ad he'd seen and I decided to check it out. When I saw that the deadline was that day, I decided why not and applied.
(If you know me well, you'll know that many of my major life decisions were made by saying "why not" and just blindly jumping in.)
Anyways, I did my interview the next day and had an offer soon after that. Within a week, I went from never considering switching to coding to being accepted and putting in my notice at work. A few weeks later, I moved across the country to start school and haven't looked back since.
I'm currently hacking on...
a robot that can play the ukulele! I'm in the midst of writing a talk for self.conference about integrating your outside passions with your coding practice. I am a classically trained cellist so I wanted to write about combining my passions with music and my passion for coding. Originally, I thought about having the robot play cello but decided that ukulele would be much easier.
I'm excited about...
the robot to actually play the ukulele... So far, I can only get it to move the solenoids back and forth so there's still a ways to go.
My advice for other women who code is...
Just go for it!
Also, read "Women Don't Ask". It was such a game changer for me in regards to negotiations and for speaking up for myself. Another great book is "What Works for Women at Work: Four Patterns Working Women Need to Know" which I'm reading right now for a book club.
Next, find some folks who you can ask questions, complain about your bugs and chat with without judgement. If you still are searching for that group, try your local meetups, RailsBridge events (and other Bridge Foundry events) and slack groups like WomenInTech or slashrocket.
Finally, if you find that you still need someone to talk to or ask questions to, feel free to reach out to me and I can either help direct you to someone who might know or answer it myself!
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