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SheCodes Talk

SheCodes Talk

More of my story from Shecodes, as well as a call-to-action about what we need to spend more time talking about.

Liz Howard

August 09, 2013
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Transcript

  1. I’m @lizTheDeveloper Director of Operations Instructor / Developer @Hackbright Academy

    Chapter Leader Teacher Girl Develop It @GDISF Friday, August 9, 13
  2. I learned to code when I was young To combat

    learning disabilities Friday, August 9, 13
  3. I learned to code when I was young To combat

    learning disabilities And to connect with my dad Friday, August 9, 13
  4. I learned to code when I was young To combat

    learning disabilities And to connect with my dad I dealt better with formal logic than with people Friday, August 9, 13
  5. My dad wrote permission slips in pseudo-code Our worst fights

    were about Visual Basic Friday, August 9, 13
  6. My dad wrote permission slips in pseudo-code Our worst fights

    were about Visual Basic Because Visual Basic is terrible Friday, August 9, 13
  7. My dad wrote permission slips in pseudo-code Our worst fights

    were about Visual Basic Because Visual Basic is terrible But also because we were a family of engineers Friday, August 9, 13
  8. My dad wrote permission slips in pseudo-code Our worst fights

    were about Visual Basic Because Visual Basic is terrible But also because we were a family of engineers I learned it was important to care about what you do Friday, August 9, 13
  9. School was terrible for me I have learning disabilities -

    teachers don’t like dealing with that. Friday, August 9, 13
  10. School was terrible for me I have learning disabilities -

    teachers don’t like dealing with that. My dad went to school for Psychology Friday, August 9, 13
  11. School was terrible for me I have learning disabilities -

    teachers don’t like dealing with that. My dad went to school for Psychology He created other opportunities for me to learn Friday, August 9, 13
  12. My heroes were mostly men Geordi LaForge was the biggest

    influencer in my life (other than my dad) Friday, August 9, 13
  13. My heroes were mostly men Geordi LaForge was the biggest

    influencer in my life (other than my dad) Friday, August 9, 13
  14. My heroes were mostly men Geordi LaForge was the biggest

    influencer in my life (other than my dad) I learned that it was more important to be kindred spirits than look alike. Friday, August 9, 13
  15. Adults focus on differences Children focus on interests Learning is

    inherently fun All children want to learn Friday, August 9, 13
  16. (what they want to learn isn’t always what you want

    to teach them) Friday, August 9, 13
  17. (what they want to learn isn’t always what you want

    to teach them) Friday, August 9, 13
  18. Because I didn’t know how I was supposed to be

    I just did what I wanted Friday, August 9, 13
  19. Because I didn’t know how I was supposed to be

    I just did what I wanted And now I’m a software engineer Friday, August 9, 13
  20. Being a software engineer means you’re surrounded by men I

    lost my female identity Friday, August 9, 13
  21. Being a software engineer means you’re surrounded by men I

    lost my female identity I was a developer not a “female developer” Friday, August 9, 13
  22. It took awhile to notice I wasn’t the same First

    taste was being referred to as “one of the good ones” Friday, August 9, 13
  23. It took awhile to notice I wasn’t the same First

    taste was being referred to as “one of the good ones” Which meant a woman who didn’t identify strongly as a woman. Friday, August 9, 13
  24. When I moved to San Francisco I didn’t know how

    to interview Friday, August 9, 13
  25. When I moved to San Francisco I didn’t know how

    to interview I thought I wasn’t a “real” developer Friday, August 9, 13
  26. When I moved to San Francisco I didn’t know how

    to interview I thought I wasn’t a “real” developer I questioned everything I knew about myself Friday, August 9, 13
  27. I started teaching basic classes with Girl Develop It Seeing

    other people struggle with identity Friday, August 9, 13
  28. I started teaching basic classes with Girl Develop It Seeing

    other people struggle with identity Made me realize I wasn’t alone Friday, August 9, 13
  29. I wrote the Fraud Prevention system for 8 of the

    top 10 banks in the country Friday, August 9, 13
  30. I wrote the Fraud Prevention system for 8 of the

    top 10 banks in the country (Sorry if your debit card gets canceled when you travel, my bad) Friday, August 9, 13
  31. We can’t be a novelty anymore It’s time to step

    up to the plate Friday, August 9, 13
  32. We can’t be a novelty anymore It’s time to step

    up to the plate Let’s all prove we know what we’re talking about Friday, August 9, 13
  33. Talk about technical things like k-means clustering like busting CAP

    theorem at scale like machine learning algorithms like natural language processing like language design like how to build an OS Friday, August 9, 13
  34. Those things are what our students to in 10 weeks

    @Hackbright Friday, August 9, 13
  35. Argue with the community about JS MVC being slow about

    Functional vs OOP about why scripting languages suck / are great about the merits of putting programmer efficacy first / last about your area of expertise about syntactic sugar in Ruby about architecture patterns and antipatterns Friday, August 9, 13
  36. Because this place is wonderful There are too many interesting,

    wonderful things to explore Friday, August 9, 13
  37. Because this place is wonderful There are too many interesting,

    wonderful things to explore To worry about what makes you different Friday, August 9, 13
  38. Because this place is wonderful There are too many interesting,

    wonderful things to explore To worry about what makes you different Just make things Friday, August 9, 13