My CS Journey

I’ve split my journey into the field of computer science into three parts. In order to understand where I come, literally and figuratively, I will first explain my family background and general childhood. Then, I will discuss how high school stem courses affected my decision to eventually major in CS. And lastly, what I think about it currently.

Background

Like most people, my family’s start in America was filled with hardship, but I was always blessed with a loving family and a love for new knowledge. We moved around a few times but eventually settled in New Jersey. My town was fairly liberal, but definitely but not a  very tech-y place like the bay area. Still, there were good stem programs around.

                However, it was my mom who had the strongest impact on my future career aspirations, during my childhood. My mom is a math lecturer at an engineering college. And although I love my dad, I have to say my mom was much more hardworking and also underappreciated. She was studying for the masters, working, taking care of me and my sister (which was NOT easy) all simultaneously. And when we would move around for the sake of my dad’s job, mom always toughed it out. So naturally my first role model was a powerful female. But that being said my mom aimed to show me how harsh reality was. When we watched American Idol or America’s Got Talent, She would always say the comically bad singers/performers had parents babied/praised them too much and she would never let that happen to me. When I was younger, mom would tell me that because I’m Asian, people are expecting me to fit in a certain stereotype which means I would have to work harder than people of other races. Also that in her experience as a teacher, she found some girls become less involved in academics and more caught up in relationships/beauty/etc as they grow older (which I think this is true due to society raising girls and boys differently). All of the things my mom would say shaped the way I viewed career, success, and prejudices people would have of me.

                Besides having my mom’s influence, my whole family works in STEM. My dad is a chemist and my sister is software engineer. Although you might assume I was pushed towards STEM, growing up, I never really experienced pressure from my family. Unlike a lot of immigrant families, my parents gave me a lot of freedom to develop my own interests.

                Overall, I think my background put me in the prime position to become a computer scientist. With an open mindset, I didn’t really feel scared or insecure about going into a field generally thought of as for Asian and white men. And with the support of my family, I actually felt really comfortable with my decision.

 

School

        I didn’t become a good student until junior year. Up until high school, I never really paid attention in school and I lacked passion and drive. I was completely reliant on natural intellect to get good grades and never found focus/concentration. I did love math though because it made sense to me and came easily to me so it was kind of apparent I would go down a STEM path because it was what came very naturally for me.

I started programming freshman year when my older sister recommended taking a programming class. I took 2 really bad programming type courses (one was barely programming). One of the classes I took was “programming for business” and there were only 2 other girls. It was an easy a+ class and we used some program I don’t remember. I didn’t learn much in that class, mainly using the time to just relax. Anyway, being one of the only girls in an engineering class was not too intimidating. This was pretty common in my high school classes, especially in the AP stem courses. But I didn’t really feel lonely or discriminated against. I had a great support system, attentive teachers, and friends in my classes. I went on to take more CS courses inside and outside of school during high school. So I would say high school gave me a lot of room to explore computer science and grow my interests.

Reflection

Lastly, I want to reflect on how this field fits me and where I think women fit in the field of computer science. So my career aspirations when I was little included fashion design and architect. I was really into creating things and designing all my life. In high school, I took classes like woodshop, ceramics, digital art, etc. So computer science fit in really well with my other interests and allowed me to be creative and problem solve in a different way.

·           Now, I love working on projects and creating in a virtual space. I’ve been doing a lot of web design projects freshman year, using html, css, javascript, and once php. But I’m really interested in anything, so I don’t really know what’s next for me. I did an internship at a startup this summer and it was really meaningful in showing what a startup environment was like. I did a lot of framework research and iOS development, which I also enjoyed. But I’m really unsure on what I want to really work on after college.

As for college, I enjoy the classes I take, but they can be really challenging. And as a woman, I feel like I’ve been really lucky and I’ve had great experiences, but I know a lot of women feel put down and discriminated against. I think sometimes the worst part is you feel like your accomplishments are like minimized or only looked at from the fact you’re a woman. I want to be seen as a good computer scientist, but I’m worried about being seen as a good computer scientist … for a girl.

At Cornell, there were more more female engineers than male in the class of 2021. So in my CS classes, there are a lot of asian females, not so many hispanic or black people at all. I think that really needs to change. I know there’s a lot of support groups/fellowships available for women in CS. I haven’t looked into any groups like that for minorities but I hope they are just as well funded and supported. It’s really nice to not feel alone, because computer science is pretty social as far as sharing ideas/problems/networking goes. I know my journey into tech has been paved by so many women before me. I’m really grateful and I can’t wait to continue.