Your Django Story: Meet Kaisa Filppula
This is a post in our Your Django Story series where we highlight awesome ladies who work with Django. Read more about it here.
Kaisa Filppula is an Associate Software Engineer at a tech company in New York City. Like many aspiring self-taught developers, Kaisa got started with online tutorials. She later attended a NYC-based, Python-centric bootcamp. Within just a few months of committing to her new path, she was hired in a full-time position writing Python. She graciously credits the positive influence of friends, the Django Girls workshop, and the inspiring atmosphere at PyCon 2015 for setting her on her way. Her hard work & persistence is an inspiration to anyone who is worried it’s “too late” to get started with code. As Kaisa’s story shows, it’s certainly not too late. Find her on GitHub.
How did your story with code start?
It started from a text message that my friend sent me a year ago. He asked me if I had ever thought of learning programming. I said yes. I really had thought of it, many times, but never took action. My friend got back to me saying that his friend, a software engineer that I had also met at our rock climbing gym, had talked about different resources for learning and that she would be happy to help me get started. I contacted her immediately and two days after I was sitting in her living room and setting up my GitHub account. In the beginning I did a bunch of online tutorials starting from HTML and CSS, then took a 14-week Java class online with University of Helsinki and finally attended a full-time Python/Django bootcamp.
What did you do before becoming a programmer?
I was a marketing researcher in magazine publishing industry. I used to design questionnaires, analyze data and put together presentations for media sales and product development purposes. It was fun and fulfilling, and it brought me to NYC. Having that non-technical background is definitely an advantage for me.
What do you love the most about coding?
Endless possibilities; the fact that I can build (almost) anything.
Why Django?
Because of Django Girls, PyCon 2015 and the programming bootcamp I attended. To be honest, I didn’t have enough experience to pick a framework, but I knew I wanted to learn Python. Looking back, I’m very happy with my choices.
What cool projects are you working on at the moment/planning on working on in the near future?
Currently I’m working on my Django-based side project GearCircles. It’s a gear rental marketplace for outdoor sports. It utilizes GeoDjango for location data, which was a fun challenge to figure out. I have a bunch of other ideas too, but right now I have enough on my plate. I rather pick a few projects and finish than pick too many and never finish any of them.
What are you most proud of?
That I’ve had enough courage to quit good jobs and take my time to figure out what I really want to do in my life. When I quit my last job, I didn’t have a next job or even an idea of what I would do next. I just knew I needed a change. A few months passed before I actually started to learn programming.
What are you curious about?
Everyday life; small and big things that just happen to me and around me. This question is actually almost impossible to answer.
What do you like doing in your free time? What’s your hobby?
I’m a backcountry skier and rock climber. East coast skiing is not bad at all, no matter what they say. Rock climbing is great too; the “‘Gunks” in New Paltz is a world-class climbing destination. When I’m in the city, I love going to movies.
Do you have any advice/tips for programming beginners?
I have three pieces of advice.
First, be persistent. Not the easiest task, but will take you far. In practice this means coding every day (self-discipline!) and pushing through challenges. Coding is fun, but honestly, sometimes it can be incredibly frustrating too.
Second, find a mentor. If you have a programmer in your group of friends, talk to her/him. She/he is most likely happy to give you advice and push you further.
Third and finally: it’s never too late. If you passed your 20s and have another career behind you, no worries, you can still make it. In fact, a combination of programming skills and your expertise in another area can be incredibly powerful in the job market.
How did attending a Django Girls workshop influence your life/career? What did you get out of attending a Django Girls workshop?
I attended Django Girls workshop at PyCon in April 2015 and absolutely loved the workshop and the whole long weekend of talks. It was there when I decided I wanted to learn Python and come back next year as a developer. After the conference I started looking for Python/Django specific bootcamps, found one and graduated just a month ago. I was hired in less than a month and currently work as an Associate Software Engineer.
Thanks Kaisa! :)
If you would like to suggest someone to be featured in the Your Django Story series (or would like to nominate yourself!), send an email to story@djangogirls.org!
Adrienne Lowe
@adriennefriendYour Django Story: Meet Kinga Kięczkowska
This is a post in our Your Django Story series where we highlight awesome ladies who work with Django. Read more about it here.
Kinga is a Django Girls workshop organiser & coach, a novice programmer and a student of Computer Security & Forensics at Edinburgh Napier University. After hours, she likes to unwind with an Oliver Sacks’ book and a surprisingly diversified playlist.
How did your story with code start?
I started in middle school - HTML, CSS, these kinds of things. Later on, in high school, I learnt some basic algorithms and how to (clumsily) implement them in Ruby. Now I’m studying Computer Security & Forensics at university, and yet still feel that my story with coding is only starting.
What did you do before becoming a programmer?
Going into computing was probably the first serious career plan I made.
What do you love the most about coding?
I like the feeling that proves to be true in most programming problems - that however big and complicated the task seems to be, it can always be divided into smaller chunks to deal with. The most enjoyable thing ever for me is to make up an algorithm which solves a given problem, and then implement it in whatever language. When it works, I’m in heaven :)
How did attending a Django Girls workshop influence your life/career? What did you get out of attending a Django Girls workshop?
I met like-minded people and was able to build a network of support in my programming endeavours. Since then I always have someone to ask or brainstorm with. I also learnt that not knowing everything isn’t a bad thing, and that most of the people aren’t exactly sure what they are doing either - just like me. And of course, I’ve made friends within the Django Girls community!
Why Django?
My involvement with Django is limited to Django Girls. I got involved with it because of all the amazing people I met during Django Girls Berlin, where I was an attendee. I liked the community and the idea of working towards bringing more women into programming - suddenly I realised there’s really not many women around there. Django Girls seemed to have the perfect recipe for it. I’m very glad I got to organise two events with the help of great people I met due to Django Girls.
What cool projects are you working on at the moment/planning on working on in the near future?
Currently I’m helping with PyCon US 2016 by reviewing the talks in the Program Committee and will be co-chairing Open Spaces. I’m really thrilled about working on OpenSpaces as I believe they are the place where most discussions and new ideas are born, as it’s the least “moderated” part of a conference. I’m also very eager on providing safe spaces for people in tech and I believe open spaces might serve as those, too.
I’m also working on a more long term project, which is getting an undergraduate degree in Computer Security & Forensics. Who knows where this is gonna take me :)
What are you curious about?
Recently, following the things I’m learning at university, I’m becoming more and more interested in the hardware side of things. I’d like to explore the theory I study in practice, so am currently saving up for a Raspberry Pi or Arduino starter kit. Any recommendations?
What do you like doing in your free time? What’s your hobby?
I enjoy playing cards and scrabble (but dislike any other board games deeply!), as well as reading. On top of everything I love travelling.
Do you have any advice/tips for programming beginners?
It may be an unpopular opinion, but my advice is - follow some kind of tutorial, at least at the beginning! It’s good to have all the basics in place before moving on to free exploration of the ever changing programming world. Don’t disregard some basic theoretical knowledge, which might not appear useful at first, such as data types and later data structures. It does help to know these things!
Also, don’t get attached to one programming language - they change a lot, and they change fast. Aim to learn how to think computationally, read around about algorithm design and things like this. If you learn how to think like a programmer, you’ll be able to adapt to new technologies faster and in a much less stressful manner.
Thanks a lot Kinga! :)
Anna Ossowski
@OssAnna16Your Django Story: Meet Andromeda Yelton
This is a post in our Your Django Story series where we highlight awesome ladies who work with Django. Read more about it here.
How did your story with code start?
I was working for a startup, wearing a lot of the non-code hats. When we were hiring a contract designer, it came down to the one whose designs we liked better but who couldn’t integrate them into our back end, and the one whose design wasn’t as strong but who could do the coding to integrate it. During the meeting about this I was looking at Django docs and I said, well, I’ve never done this but I think I could, and my boss said that’s good, because we’re hiring the stronger designer and you’re doing the front end work.
Of course, that’s not actually the start. I’d taken a semester of programming required by my university as an undergrad, and I’d dabbled in various languages since childhood, but none of it had ever stuck before I had a project and a deadline.
What did you do before becoming a programmer?
Double-majored in math and classics; inexplicably found the latter more marketable, got an MA in classics, and taught Latin to middle school boys. Realized I wasn’t going to do that my whole life, got a library degree with the intention of doing reference and instruction at a university, drifted toward web or systems librarianship during grad school, and then graduated smack into a giant recession, ultimately ending up at the aforementioned startup…
What do you love the most about coding?
Are you asking my right brain, my left brain, or my heart? It’s a tossup among pure problem-solving, building things that empower people to do more stuff in the world (that’s my inner teacher/librarian talking), or turning pure thought into real-world actions.
Why Django?
It was what I needed to know at the time! But it’s turned out to be useful for a variety of projects; it has a good ecosystem of third-party components and nice people. And Python turns out to have been the first programming language I actually really liked using.
What cool projects are you working on at the moment/planning on working on in the near future?
I’m a freelancer, so I have a steady diet of new cool stuff.
My long-term gig is CustomFit. My friend Amy Herzog is a knitting pattern designer and she teaches people to modify sweaters to fit their real bodies (not the ones the pattern thinks they’re “supposed” to have); CustomFit wraps that up into code that produces custom knitting patterns around people’s actual measurements. I don’t knit, but I’ve been a part of knitting thousands of sweaters, and I really like working on code that helps people be creative and feel good about their bodies.
Another friend has a Knight Foundation grant to create better building usage analytics options for libraries, using open-source hardware and software, and I’ll be writing the front end for that. So I just got a full Django stack operating on an Intel Edison, which fits cozily in the palm of my hand.
I’m also just about to start on a project for Wikipedia (!). They have a program where active editors can get access to paywalled journals, but the application process for that is spaghetti, and I’m going to write an app to simplify that for them.
What are you most proud of?
The ways my work has helped people be more capable and confident. CustomFit does a lot of that, and I love seeing people wearing their sweaters on Ravelry. I’ve also taught coding workshops and it’s always great to see students go on and do things with their new skills.
What are you curious about?
….everything?
What do you like doing in your free time? What’s your hobby?
I’m a freelancer juggling a bunch of clients, a board member of a national library organization, and the mom of an 8-year-old. I don’t think I have free time?
Do you have any advice/tips for programming beginners?
Find a project and a mentor (or at least some nice people who can answer questions and show you their toolchain).
Programming is full of feels, and that’s okay. You will run into fear, frustration, and failure; that’s normal and doesn’t mean you can’t do this. Part of the process of becoming an experienced programmer is learning tools for handling those feelings: developing faith that you’ll solve the problems. Eventually you will! (But it’s okay to walk away from your computer for a while if you need to.)
Thanks Andromeda! :)
If you would like to suggest someone to be featured in the Your Django Story series (or would like to nominate yourself!), send an email to story@djangogirls.org!
Adrienne Lowe
@adriennefriend1st Django Girls Novi Sad workshop, Serbia
I found out about Django Girls at a PyGrunn meetup at the end of March of this year in Groningen, The Netherlands. There I met Python programmer, Laurence de Jong, and he invited me over to the workshop. I really liked the idea of the workshop, and also I found it a big stimulant to work on my own programming skills. Afterwards Laurence suggested that I organize one in Novi Sad as well. And so I did. :)
I started planning the event two months prior. For me the past period has been a thrilling experience, more so because of the support I had of my professor Mr Branko MIlosavljevic from Faculty Of Technical Sciences - Novi Sad. He provided the venue in Park City for the workshop and he was a great moral support.
Coaches - Goal: 10
I talked to Mr Nikola Marcetic from NTSystems, and he offered his support! Also he brought Mr Nebojsa Mrkic on board. Great boost! :)
On September 1st the workshop was announced on our public website djangogirls.org/novisad and in local media as well. The news spread around fast and in less than a week we received 100 applications.
Python programmers Mr Andrean Franc and Mr Ivica Kolenkas immediately sent me an email. They decided to donate their time and knowledge by being coaches at the workshop. So after two weeks we had 5 coaches. 5 left to go!
I let Laurence know that we picked up on his suggestion to have a workshop in Novi Sad and invited him over to be our special guest and a coach. He accepted our invitation to strengthen our team! 4 coaches left to go!
The invitation emails I decided to send to pythonic people Miss Renata Vaderna, Miss Isidora Sekulic, Mr Dejan Mijic and Mr Darko Bacic. Their reactions were positive. I was happy to know that now we had a great team of 10 coaches!
Support/Sponsors/Food/Drinks
Django Girls Novi Sad was 100% funded by companies who care about diversity and creating opportunities for women. A lot of thank you’s go out to Python Software Foundation, GitHub and NTSystems.
We managed to deal with the logistics economically so we didn’t spend all budget. From the remainder we decided to support our non-profit organization Django Girls! There are many workshops around the globe which they can help with.
Participants – Goal: 30 women
From the beginning the goal was to host 30 women. We received no less then 316 applications!
Scoring applications was really tough, because many of the women were very enthusiastic about participating in the workshop. We used Django Girls advice on how to score applications.
We decided to create three lists: rejected/waiting/accepted. Emails were sent to all applicants. The plan was to have two rounds. The first round was to wait for response from women that we accepted and women on the waiting list who were still interested in the workshop. After the first round, two women who had been accepted cancelled, so we invited two women from the waiting list. Coaches contacted applicants via email to provide more information and instructions for the workshop. Unfortunately, the night before the workshop three women cancelled because of illness. During the workshop two more women left because of the same virus and one woman didn’t show up at all. Luckily, some attendees brought friends with them, so we had 2 extra women in our workshop. Final score at the end of the workshop: 26 attendees! To the women which let us know that they got ill we sent an online tutorial and let them know to feel free to contact their coaches for any help they need. I must mention how great coach Mr Andrean Franc was, who met with his group before the workshop and they decided to meet again after the workshop!
Before the workshop we had a light talk in which we thanked our sponsors and attendees for being part of this Django knowledge-sharing adventure! During the workshop food and drinks were available. Local TV station made a visit to make a small reportage. All attendees and coaches got a t-shirt, a Micro GitHub account, assorted diversity stickers and handouts.
In the venue, we used three fully equiped IT classrooms, so we had plenty of space and everybody felt comfortable. The time schedule was from 9.30 until 18.00, with a lunch break from 12-13.
After the workshop Mr Ivica Kolenkaš announced his support for a follow-up workshop. :)
Thanks
I am glad that this Django adventure has visited Novi Sad. Once again I need to thank to all attendees for being good learners, to our coaches for donating their time and knowledge, to professor Branko Milosavljevic, GitHub, Python Software Foundation and NTSystems for their sponsorship and support, and to Laurence de Jong for inspiring me to start this adventure. I hope that some of the attendees found at this workshop their IT inspiration. :)
I am looking forward to the next workshop!
All pictures from the workshop are in a Django Girls Flickr album.
The list of all coaches is on the official website.
What have we learned and what can we do better for the next workshop?
- By sharing your knowledge, you gain more than you lose;
- We can translate the tutorial in Serbian language;
- Organize pre-workshop for Python intro;
- More stickers and cupcakes! :)
Olgica Djuric
Olgica on LinkedInYour Django Story: Meet Tricia Campbell
This is a post in our Your Django Story series where we highlight awesome ladies who work with Django. Read more about it here.
Patricia “Tricia” Campbell is Canadian and lives and works in Montréal. She started working as a programmer in 1980 and stayed in the industry until 2010. She taught part-time from 1994 - 2010, after which she started teaching full-time. She has held a variety of positions in the field, including applications programmer, systems programmer (telecom) devops, and systems and network administrator. She’s fluent in C/C++, Java, System 370 Assembler, and Bash scripting, and is familiar with PHP, JavaScript and Python. Her passion is seeking ways to make computer science more appealing for women and girls.
How did your story with code start?
I did not know what I wanted to do as a career path. I was in advanced math in high school so someone suggested Computer Science. I took a three-year college course and worked immediately afterward.
What did you do before becoming a programmer?
I was in high school and college.
What do you love the most about coding?
The creative aspect of it: I can have an idea and create something from scratch. Code itself can be very syntactically and structurally beautiful. You can see the hand of a master in code. The fact that the field is always changing and there is always an interesting puzzle to solve keeps me interested as well.
Why Django?
Two reasons: 1) I want to learn more Python and 2) I have a pet project that needs server-side data. Currently the project is in beta. The server-side is hosted on OpenShift with a PHP + MySQL. I want to implement it in Django as the back end and in order to deliver a web interface in future.
What cool projects are you working on at the moment/planning on working on in the near future?
The project I just mentioned. I have a beta, or proof of concept, version of an app with a test database. I want to expand and improve on it. The database will be women in computer science, past and present. The front end is currently an Android app that allows searching. It is a big undertaking and I am hoping to include some Django Girls stories if I can. Both front-end and back-end will be open source. The project is on my GitHub account but not in any deliverable format just yet. I am also looking into using GCM (fun puzzle!).
What are you curious about?
The evolution of the cloud and cloud services. It’s back to the mainframe paradigm but you can call up a whole VM!
What do you like doing in your free time? What’s your hobby?
I love traveling. My favourite exercise is swimming. I like to meet with friends and work in my garden. I also like to knit.
Do you have any advice/tips for programming beginners?
Everyone can and should learn how to code, but not everyone wants it to be their career. If you enjoy creating code then be persistent, ask questions, and don’t be shy to ask for help. If you can, find a mentor. Women need to take back ICT. There are not enough women in the field. We hold up half the circuits!
Thanks Tricia! :)
If you would like to suggest someone to be featured in the Your Django Story series (or would like to nominate yourself!), send an email to story@djangogirls.org!
Adrienne Lowe
@adriennefriendDjango Girls Seoul Code Camp
At Django Girls Seoul we had a hugely successful workshop of about 66 participants and 28 coaches. The enthusiasm and eagerness of some of the participants prompted us to make a follow-up event that we called Django Girls X, where we would let the participants finish the tutorial and some even the extended material. At the follow-up event we had about 30 participants, and besides a few new faces the rest were from the original Django Girls workshop. At the original workshop we had a lot of interest with 425 applicants. Of course there were challenges, but because of the interest and attention on this event, the organizing team did our best to live up to the Django Girls’ standard. Check out more about the event here or go check out our awesome photos!
Even before the event ended we knew we wanted to take this enthusiasm and interest and do something bigger so we put together a Code Camp. The organizing team members had already been doing study meet-ups with Code For Everyone for about a year and a half among themselves. The idea of making a regular study session to continue supporting and helping Django Girls participants fit right in with our schedule and mission. Since some of the members had been complete newbies (me!) and others were experienced programmers that had to coach the newbies, we were experienced in what courses and techniques work well in that studying environment.
Basics
The Django Girls Code Camp will meet every Saturday for seven weeks from 1 pm – 6 pm. We used the same venue that we used for Django Girls workshop. At the start of planning, some of the more experienced programmers were very ambitious with what we could accomplish in that time. We eventually got the curriculum down to a more manageable amount, going back to the basics more in-depth: Python, SQL, and Django.
Participants
We first invited those that came to the extended workshop to come to the code camp. Next, we asked any participants from the original workshop if they wanted to come and we had a few spots left that we opened it up to the public. We closed applications off when we reached 35 qualified participants. We stressed in the invitation that only those that can commit to coming each Saturday, or making up the work, should sign up. Of course we don’t expect 100% attendance from all participants so we made a requirement for coming to the following session is making up all missed work. We have a Slack channel for them to get help from coaches if they need it.
Schedule
The basic schedule is shaping up to be: welcome and introduction, warm-up exercises, worked exercises, pair programming with more difficult exercises or tutorial (depending on the day). We grouped the participants by language and level because we had a handful of intermediate participants.
Coaches
We recruited about 7 coaches from the original Django Girls workshop to help us but we decided not to assign groups like we did at the workshop. We thought it was better to change groups each time. Because we’ll be doing pair programming, it’s important to partner with different people each time to get a range of experience.
Curriculum
The warm-up exercises will be a review of what we did the previous week that also act as good confidence builders. After the participants have had time to work on the exercises by themselves, usually the first thirty minute while others are arriving late, we’ll move into worked exercises. Each session a different coach or participant will work through one of the warm-up exercises. It’s beneficial as a learner to see how other people work through a problem. It’s also good to see other people make mistakes or get stuck because it helps participants realize even professional programmers don’t know everything. After the worked exercises, the participants are paired up and given more difficult exercise to complete together using pair programming. On the days we’re introducing new material we’ll replace the pair-programming with a lectures and tutorials.
Resources
Because we have a mixed crowd of Korean speakers and English speakers (or non-Korean speakers), making and translating all the curriculum is difficult, and still a work in progress.
Python:
- Codecademy’s Python track is in both Korean and English
- Charles Severance’s open source book: Python for Informatics is also in both English and Korean.
- Coursera’s Programming for Everybody is beginner-friendly and easy to follow.
Because we couldn’t find up-to-date tutorials for SQL or Django in Korean, we’re making our own based on Sqlzoo and other online Django tutorials.
We plan to share our curriculum with the Django Girls community via Github after we’ve completed the program and hope we can improve on it for next time!
Future
This is our first time organizing a code camp but we have high hopes. This code camp is more an introduction and we hope to have a second that will go more in-depth so that by end the participants will be able to complete a personal final project. We also want to give the participants opportunities with real projects by doing some projects for local non-profits. Lastly, for eligible candidates, we are hoping to place them in internships with companies to get some more on-the-job training. If you have any comments, suggestions or questions please let us know!
Rachell Calhoun
@Rachell_CalhounYour Django Story: Meet Shauna Gordon-McKeon
This is a post in our Your Django Story series where we highlight awesome ladies who work with Django. Read more about it here.
Shauna Gordon-McKeon is a developer, writer, and researcher with a particular passion for open science and free software. She runs a development consulting business, Galaxy Rise Consulting.
How did your story with code start?
After I graduated college, I joined a neuroimaging lab. Working with the massive amounts of data produced by fMRI requires a fair bit of programming knowledge, and so I began to pick it up - a bit of bash scripting, some perl, some python, and a whole lot of Matlab. It was a very informal process, and though I had a lot of help from my labmates, there was a huge amount of blundering around. I wasn’t even introduced to the concept of version control until two years in, and no one ever mentioned unit testing. This experience is what leads me to be an enthusiastic cheerleader of Software Carpentry, a non-profit organization that teaches technical skills to scientists.
Eventually I decided I didn’t want to be an academic. I wasn’t sure what to do next, but the technical skills I’d gained were definitely the most sought-after, and so I started to search for freelance programming jobs.
What did you do before becoming a programmer?
As I said above, I did neuroscience research. I’m still a number of things in addition to a programmer, including a scientist, and I’ve contributed to research as part of the open science community, and have done freelance work as a medical meta-analyst. I see a lot of stories from newcomers about starting new careers as programmers. I think that’s fantastic, but I hope that people know that there are ways to combine your old skillsets and passions with new programming skills. You don’t have to change your career completely - unless you want to.
What do you love the most about coding?
I love how straightforward it is. I’m drawn to solving complex problems, and coding can absolutely scratch the problem-solving itch, but I’m used to dealing with questions like, “Why do people think the way they do?”, “How do systematic biases influence scientific results?”, and “How does technology change communities?” I’m used to questions with no guaranteed answers.
Compared to that, coding is blessedly simple. Sometimes, when I’m working on a particularly thorny bug, I look at my computer and say, “There is a reason you’re doing what you’re doing and I will find it.” And I know I’m speaking the truth. I do always find that bug, eventually.
Why Django?
I started working with Django about a year and a half ago, as I started contributing to free/open source software projects that used it. I liked it from the get-go. To start with, it’s in Python, which is my favorite language and my favorite language community. I also really appreciate the effort put into the documentation and the starter tutorial, which has been hugely helpful to me. I think the care that the Django team has for this, draws others who care about teaching and documenting into the community, resulting in a delightful feedback loop and all sorts of excellent resources for newcomers - the DjangoGirls Tutorial, Two Scoops of Django, and Obey the Testing Goat, just to name a few. And I like how modular Django is. Often when I need a particular feature I can find it in the form of an app and adapt it to my needs. It’s very efficient.
What cool projects are you working on at the moment/planning on working on in the near future?
I’ve always got too many projects on my plate. Right now, one of my side projects is a Django-based tool I call Informant. It’s a relatively simple note-taking app that allows me to link notes in a non-hierarchical way. I can then perform various network analyses to get recommendations of concepts to explore further, and other neat things. Once I clean up the code a bit I’ll put it on github with an AGPL license so anyone who wants to can take a look, contribute, and fork it. It will end up here: https://github.com/shaunagm/informant
There are a number of other Django-related projects on my to do list. I’ve talked with some folks at Hypothes.is/Open Annotator about creating a Django package to interface with their tool. I also want there to be a (separate) Django app which handles citation/DOI lookups and verifications. Figuring out timing and funding to tackle these things is always a challenge, so I’m not sure when I’ll get to them, but hopefully I will - or I’d be delighted to find someone else has tackled them while I wasn’t paying attention.
What are you the most proud of?
That’s an interesting question! I try to be proud of all my work, whether it’s successful or not, because I think that’s how we grow. I recently gave my first keynote, at SeaGL, and even though I was incredibly nervous I’m told it went well, and I’m proud of that. I’ve been learning to make Android apps using Java, and that’s been an adventure, but I’m starting to get the hang of it, and I’m proud of that. I’ve applied to a number of fellowships and programs over the last couple of years, and I didn’t get into any of them, but I pushed myself to apply in the first place, and I’m proud of that.
What are you curious about?
It would be easier to tell you what I’m not curious about. Consider the following replies to be non-comprehensive.
If the question is “What about coding are you curious about?”, I’d say: what it means to make modular programs and platforms; the challenges of federation and their importance in an increasingly centralized society; the hows and wherefores of exception handling; certificate authorities, blockchains and other network-based systems of trust; automated testing in all its glorious forms; how technology in general and software in particular can reinforce culture and subconscious biases; recommendation algorithms; artificial intelligence; computer-based randomness generators; and the math behind encryption.
If the question is “What in general are you curious about?” I’d say: human behavior in pretty much every form and detail; black holes; abiogensis; why we sleep; mythology and fandom and their overlap; uncertainty and how we quantify it; theories of learning and education; systems of discrimination and oppression and how they influence our lives; convergent evolution; the philosophy of property; and communication media.
What do you like doing in your free time? What’s your hobby?
My oldest hobby is fiction writing, which I’ve been doing since I was very young. I’ve written a few novels, although I was disappointed to discover that the hard part is not writing them, it’s editing them - so for now, they remain secreted away on my hard drive. I also write children’s books. This started as a present for my favorite three year old (now my favorite five year old) and was full of silly in-jokes and ridiculous photoshops. I do have one children’s book that I hope to release for general audiences, about a tiny genderqueer superhero, but I’m still looking for an artist to do illustrations, so it’s not out yet.
I play softball whenever I can, which is not often. I am always happy to teach people how to hit a softball, or to rant about the effect of patriarchy on softball demographics across the lifespan - or both at once, if you prefer.
I like making and solving puzzles. The MIT Mystery Hunt is my favorite holiday of the year. :)
One more: I like to bake cakes shaped like things which are not cakes.
Do you have any advice/tips for programming beginners?
Plenty! Perhaps the single most import thing I have to say is: have faith in yourself. Learning to program is a lifelong process, but it’s especially difficult at the beginning, when you don’t know what you don’t know. Early on, I’d run into trouble constantly and never be sure if it was because it was a hard problem or because I was missing something obvious. I was lucky, though, that I had more experienced lab mates who took the time to help me. (It was either that or listen to me mash the keyboard and make whimpering noises all day!) So that’s another piece of advice: find mentors. Easier said than done, of course, but there are places you can go to find us - for instance Django Girls, CodeNewbies, PyLadies, OpenHatch, the Outreachy community, Positive Python, and your local Python and Django usergroups, just to name a few.
Another tip: learn how to ask good questions. At the request of a friend, I wrote down some advice about this, which you can find here. I ask a lot of questions, so I make sure to let people know how grateful I am for their help and their time.
Closing thought: you may experiment with programming and decide it’s not a good fit for you, and that’s great - I’m glad you learned that about yourself! - but please, please, please do not give up because you think you’re not good enough to be a coder. Coding is just hard, and takes time to learn, and it’s hard to navigate the vast array of languages, frameworks, groups and resources to find what works for you. If you’re having trouble, try a new approach. If you’re having trouble finding a new approach, ask for help.
Thanks so much, Shauna!
If you would like to suggest someone to be featured in the Your Django Story series (or would like to nominate yourself!), send an email to story@djangogirls.org!
Adrienne Lowe
@adriennefriendYour Django Story: Meet Adrienne Lowe
This is a post in our Your Django Story series where we highlight awesome ladies who work with Django. Read more about it here.
Anna Ossowski has managed our Your Django Story series for the past year, and has interviewed dozens of badass Django programmers. She’s moving on to other amazing things, and we’d all like to thank her for her hard work!
This week, we’re introducing the newest member of the Your Django Story team, Adrienne Lowe! Adrienne is taking over for Anna, and will be publishing interviews each week with more phenomenal women Django developers. But before she dives in to get started, let’s get to know her!
Adrienne Lowe began coding in 2007 while attending graduate school, and starting learning Python a few years later when she created her blog, Coding With Knives. She’s a volunteer programmer with the online project Letters to My 25 Year Old Self, organized the wildly successful Django Girls Atlanta workshop, and heads up the ATL chapter of PyLadies. You can find her on Twitter.
How did your story with code start?
My story with code started in 2007 when I started to use open source software in my graduate school’s computer lab. Amazingly, we were fully Ubuntu! When I learned more about the philosophy of open source and free software, I knew I wanted to be a part of the story as more than just a user. I thought that writing code might be a way of doing that.
I toyed with the idea of learning Python in the years that followed, but didn’t get serious about it until late 2014, when I started writing at my blog Coding with Knives. Coding with Knives marries my lifelong passion for culinary arts with programming and shows how these disparate subjects can inform one another in compelling ways! I feature a mix of original recipes, reviews of Python materials, and the insider scoop on all the conferences I get to attend.
What did you do before becoming a programmer?
When I launched Coding with Knives last year, I had two jobs. My day job was as a fundraising professional with a major university. I worked on a team that was responsive to the fundraising departments of all of the unversity’s schools and “units,” as we called them, and implemented programs for securing annual donations.
In the evenings and on weekends, I taught cooking classes and provided occasional special event catering and personal chef services to families throughout Atlanta. Prior to working at the university, I was a personal chef full time.
What do you love the most about coding?
My favorite thing about coding is how we can bring our wonderfully distinct personalities and life experiences to the activity. Every line of code we write is imbued with our uniqueness and our goals for making something useful for somebody else (and sometimes, just ourselves!).
Why Django?
The community, of course! As a newcomer, I’ve felt incredibly welcomed and supported by everyone I’ve met who is associated with Django in particular. From Django Girls to DEFNA, Django organizations are founded and run by people who deeply care about others and who work hard to help them achieve their goals.
Also: our documentation is super rad.
What cool projects are you working on at the moment/planning on working on in the near future?
I’m really proud, and slightly intimidated, to share that I just joined the (two person!) volunteer development team at Letters to My 25 Year Old Self. Žan Anderle, a kind and brilliant full-stack developer based in Slovenia, invited me to be part of the project after we met at DjangoCon Europe this past May. He started the conversation by asking me what I wanted to get out of the experience as a contributor, and is working carefully to make sure my goals are met. I feel profoundy spoiled and humbled to invited into someone else’s project so warmly, and to be so supported throughout. I hope I can make some meaningful contributions, and soon!
I’m also excited to be speaking at ELA Conf in Philadelphia on November 21. The goal of ELA Conf is to create a safe, supporting, and inspiring community for women to gain the confidence needed to become leaders, speakers, and teachers in the world of tech. I’ll be sharing a few of the things I’ve learned from the experience of speaking at tech conferences in a talk called “Bake the Cookies, Wear the Dress: Bringing Confident Authenticity to your Tech Talk.”
What are you the most proud of?
At the moment, I’m extraordinarily proud to have organized Atlanta’s first Django Girls workshop. Python for women in Atlanta is small, and I am one of the main reasons we have any kind of organized presence. I want to give Atlanta women the world, and being able to make Django Girls happen here was deeply satisfying. For the full report on that event at the Django Girls blog, see the blog post about it.
What are you curious about?
Food! I wish I had something more sophisticated to say, but I’m usually thinking about what I just ate or what I want to cook or eat next. Any time I travel to a new city, I make a wish list of all of the places I want to go and things I want to eat. And at home, I regularly write new recipes and try them out. Please encourage me to share more recipes at Coding with Knives - it is something I know people really enjoy, and I want to get better about it!
What do you like doing in your free time? What’s your hobby?
In addition to cooking, I love hiking in the woods alone or with a friend. I went through a significant life change last year and getting out in the woods was the only thing that helped me truly cope with the difficult things I was experiencing. Now, when I need some quiet, rest, or just a place to be myself, I return to the woods for a hike.
I also organize Atlanta’s PyLadies group, PyLadiesATL. I’m really happy to share that since I came on as a co-organizer this summer, our group has grown by leaps and bounds. We went from not having regular meetings at all, to meeting monthly and attracting increasingly bigger crowds!
Do you have any advice/tips for programming beginners?
Start asking your scariest, ugliest, weirdest, most terrifying questions – about code! – as soon as possible. Don’t fear that what you’re curious about is too basic, or a waste of time, or something you “should” already know. The sooner you can just spit it out and get it answered, the better it will be for you and everybody else.
Please remember that the folks you ask weren’t born with these answers. They learned them, and you can too. But you must summon the courage to ask! And if the person you’re asking treats you unkindly – if someone EVER makes you feel any less than for asking – don’t deal with them. Share about your experience and find someone who treats you with the respct and kindness you deserve. And it shouldn’t be hard: there are plenty of folks ready to do so in the Django community.
How did attending a Django Girls workshop influence your life/career? What did you get out of attending a Django Girls workshop?
Organizing a Django Girls workshop was a great way for me to flex a lot of the skills I’ve developed over the years – event planning, fundraising, teaching – to put together a memorable experience for Atlanta’s deserving women. The attendees made it very clear to me how thankful they were for the event. It was just a great way for me to enact my deeply-held value of making programming accessible and inviting for women.
Thanks Adrienne! :)
If you would like to suggest someone to be featured in the Your Django Story series (or would like to nominate yourself!), send an email to story@djangogirls.org!
Lacey Williams Henschel
@laceynwilliamsYour Django Story: Meet Michelle Glauser
This is a post in our Your Django Story series where we highlight awesome ladies who work with Django. Read more about it here.
Michelle Glauser is a lover of Python and homemade cookies. She learned to code at Hackbright Academy in 2012 and happily became a software engineer. Michelle is passionate about helping more women join and feel comfortable in tech. When she’s not doing techie things, she enjoys baking (and consuming the goods), burying herself in a book, playing the piano, going on hikes, and watching dogs at a nearby park with her husband. You can find her on Twitter.
How did your story with code start?
I’d been blogging since 2003 and occasionally playing with the HTML and CSS on Blogger, but that was the extent of my coding until a few years ago, when I was working at a small startup in San Francisco. One of my jobs was to post on social media about our product, but I didn’t feel like I was getting new content fast enough from our technical staff. When my boss asked me to come up with a mockup and I did some research on website designs, I started wishing I could build cool websites myself and so I googled “how to build websites.” I attended a couple of free RailsBridge and Rails Girls workshops before signing up for Hackbright Academy, a women-only, Python bootcamp in San Francisco.
What did you do before becoming a programmer?
I wrote my Master’s thesis on autobiographical acts on the internet, so I was very interested in how we use technology to tell our stories. I was hoping to get into a PhD program to become a professor of digital humanities, but that didn’t pan out, so I was trying to figure out what else interested me when I decided to attend Hackbright Academy. Interestingly, I’d always been interested in computers and technology (I was the only girl in a tech class in high school, and I was the only member of my family who loved to play around with DOS), but I’d just never known what the options were for software engineering careers and had never known how creative, versatile, and rewarding coding could be.
What do you love the most about coding?
What I said above. I love that it’s creative, versatile, and so satisfying when you figure things out.
Why Django?
We used Flask at Hackbright Academy, but I opted to use Django for my final project because it seemed like more companies were using it and I wanted to get a headstart on learning it and be more employable that way. My first job after Hackbright didn’t actually end up being at a company that used Django, but I continued to work on my Django skills.
What cool projects are you working on at the moment/planning on working on in the near future?
I haven’t had a lot of time to develop in the last month because I’ve been organizing the #ILookLikeAnEngineer billboard campaign—a fundraiser to show faces of underrepresented engineers to raise awareness and inspiration and normalize non-stereotypical engineers. We had an amazing sold-out event (you can read about it here). I’m also excited about some free classes I’m trying to organize to teach programming to low-income individuals who don’t have their own laptops to bring with them.
What are you the most proud of?
Tough question. I asked my husband, and without any background as to why I was asking, he said, “Your transition to being a web developer.”
What are you curious about?
I’m not really sure how to answer this question. Do you mean as-yet unlearned tech skills, like data visualization? Do you mean what interests me in tech that I already use, like ? Or what interests me besides tech, like modern American literature or languages? Or would my curiosity about where MH370 is suffice? :D
What do you like doing in your free time? What’s your hobby?
I like to hike, dog-watch at parks, read novels, and spend time with my husband. I speak German fluently and am learning Mandarin. I also like to travel and have blogged a lot about it.
Do you have any advice/tips for programming beginners?
Don’t get overwhelmed. Break things down into very small, very specific blocks so you can on focus on one thing at a time, at least until you need to jump around while accomplishing things, and then you need to forget about your desire to know everything about each technology you touch. I have an enormous learning-to-code resources spreadsheet that can get pretty scary, so I’m very willing to give advice on which thing to start with and where to go from there.
Thanks Michelle! :)
Anna Ossowski
@OssAnna16Your Django Story: Meet Szilvia Kádár
This is a post in our Your Django Story series where we highlight awesome ladies who work with Django. Read more about it here.
Szilvi studied economics at university and worked in this field for 8 years but last year something changed in her life. After she participated in the first Django Girls Budapest workshop, she decided to become a programmer. Now she works as a software developer at Vertis and she is one of the Django Girls Budapest organizers. When she doesn’t learn or code, she helps running various events for the Python community in Budapest. You can follow her on Twitter at @kadarszilvi.
How did your story with code start?
Hm, it’s hard to tell, I think the entire story goes back to my family. I grew up in a kind of an IT fan environment, as my father, his sister and my grandfather were programmers. Basically I’ve had a chance to get to know this field at a very young age - e.g. when I was twelve I learnt some basic programming in DOS :)
But after that I learnt economics in high school and university. So although I was always interested in IT, my real coding story started only last year, when after suffering a lot from my early career burnout, I finally realized that the thing I always missed was IT. After this recognition I started looking for different courses and asked some of my programmer friends about what I should learn, and how to become an expert. I didn’t find the best solution for a while… But I believe if you really want something you’ll get it somehow. And in this case I was right. In November my friend mentioned this great opportunity (I mean Django Girls) and I knew that this was what I always wanted. I think most of you had the same feeling :)
After an awesome day I was pretty sure that something huge happened to me. I loved the entire programming stuff and wanted to learn more and more. So after working 8-10 hours at the office, I went home and I studied from online courses. Then one of my friends asked me: “Why do you do this? Why don’t you just quit your job and let your career change happen?” This thought was a bit scary for me, but I knew he was right. So I made my decision and quit. I had some money-savings so I could afford to be at home for 3 months and study programming.
The funny thing is while I didn’t want to get a job yet, a position was offered to me at the end of July. So since the beginning of August I’ve been working as a software developer in a small developer team, where my boss and colleague give me the chance to learn a lot. I can’t believe how lucky I am! :)
What did you do before becoming a programmer?
I had worked as an economist for 8 years and I had never been in a position which is strictly connected to IT before. But I did learn a lot about business: I learnt economics, marketing, organizational development, I worked in finance, logistics, HR and sales controlling. I think it’s a nice background and I got useful experience from these years. I’m pretty sure that I’ll use this knowledge later in my life.
What do you love the most about coding?
In three words: problem-solving, creativity and openness.
I used to say that if you become a programmer, you’ll have to learn to learn. I love that you have to think about the thing you have to solve. There are no standard or final solutions, you always have to be able to learn about new things, technologies, and have to be open to the out-of-the-box thinking.
How did attending a Django Girls workshop influence your life/career? What did you get out of attending a Django Girls workshop?
My entire career change wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t attended the Django Girls workshop, so it was a huge influence, I guess :) But the most important thing I would like to highlight is it turned out for me that nothing is impossible. If you want something, and do your best, you are able to do anything. It’s never too late or the wrong time. Every human being is really powerful if they believe in themselves. Since Django Girls I’ve not only become a programmer, but I’ve become strong and brave.
Why Django?
It wasn’t a conscious decision. I had no idea about the programming languages and frameworks before Django Girls. But I’m very happy that I met Python and Django first, because Python is a very nice language and it is easy to learn the programming logic. And about the Django framework, I really like its powerfulness.
What cool projects are you working on at the moment/planning on working on in the near future?
Since I work as a software developer I’ve met a dozen of technologies we use, and I have to learn a lot about them. So my idea is to make an own webpage with these technologies and in this way my professional development will be as effective as possible. I’ll create a responsive web page, using the REST framework of Django & Bootstrap, meanwhile I’ll learn a lot about HTML, CSS and jQuery. When I’m done, I want to show these technologies to the other beginners, because this project shows pretty well how a developer job works.
What are you the most proud of?
To be honest I’m really proud of my persistence. It wasn’t easy to make the decision to step out of my comfort zone. But I keep being enthusiastic - that’s my secret. I’m still at the beginning: I have to prove to my employer that I was a good choice, so I do my best and I believe in myself.
What are you curious about?
With an economics background, I’m interested in the connection between business and IT; how can we turn this relationship to be more effective, what is the best way of working together. I’m a strategic thinker and love to see the big picture. And in my previous jobs I’ve never felt that the current company’s IT technology really supports the business goals and the work processes. It was so confusing! That’s why I wanted to work in a tech field… And a few years later I would like to try myself in a role which mediates between business and IT.
What do you like doing in your free time? What’s your hobby?
My hobby? Now my hobby is my job :) But of course I have a lot of things to do in my spare time. I’m a Django Girls Budapest organizer, and I help with organizing the next DjangoCon Europe (which will be held in Budapest in 2016), the monthly Python meetups, and a programming course called as Pylvax. So I should say that organizing is my favourite hobby, right? :) (And of course, I love biking, being outside, hanging out with my friends, travelling, living in the moment, etc. ;) )
Do you have any advice/tips for programming beginners?
You can learn a lot from different online courses, like Udacity, Coursera, Codecademy. And you can make new friendships, just be a networker, find your Python community in your city! You will find awesome people. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, they will help you! I only have positive experiences.
And at last, but not least: Don’t give up, it’s totally worth it :)
Thanks a lot Szilvi! :)