AfrotechGirl

When I was in College, every time I walked into one of my computer science classes I could feel the unwelcome energy from the guys. Thankfully the class had some girls too, it was a class of around forty and of those about five were girls. In most cases I usually would just ignore it and go about minding my own business. But as time passed, and being only human there was a desire to be accepted by the group.  One thing I had noticed was that one of the girls who is till this day a close friend seemed to have their respect because she was usually top of the class.  The mindset of most guys at the time, was that this is a boy’s thing, so the only explanation of a girl’s presence there was that you were really smart. Even after I graduated and I would tell people mostly guys what I do the response was “Oh, you must be very smart.” The only problem is I don’t think I am the smartest person in the world, and while in college I certainly was not top of my class. But somehow this e...

  A couple of weeks ago I was having trouble with one of the tasks on my ALX project, so I reached out to one of the backend specialization groups I am in.  I was able to have my challenged addressed and finish my project on time. It got me thinking about the power of a supporting community. A community can be defined as the condition of sharing or having certain attitude and interests in common. There are different types of communities that can be formed based on a shared interests, struggles, vision or beliefs. You can even have a community within a community, one such example is within a family were certain family members can form their own community based on shared interests. In this particular article I want to focus on the power a community has of lifting us when we feel we are at our weakest. My first software community was online and it came in the form of stack overflow, I was so surprised to find that they were people who I could relate to in my struggles in the deve...

  I continued working hard to deliver on my tasks but like with any projects there are certain tasks that are delayed or performed not according to the specification. This did not sit well with my supervisor, it seemed that regardless of how I performed at a task it never met his requirements even if those requirements were set by him. Now I am of the firm belief that the breakdown in any relationship is never on just one party but on both individuals, In my working relationship with my supervisor however it seemed like he was hell bent on making me the villain, by labelling me as the underperforming employee.   He seemed not willing to see how things could be resolved together. I cannot and will not speculate on his behavior but I do know that his views made it impossible for him to handle our working environment better through his comments that usually carried micro aggressions by referencing my gender when it came down to perform certain tasks.   Sadly enough I p...

  Last week some of you commented on how you would like me to talk about the technical aspect of the job and my insight as a woman.   So here we are, I knew however that I could not give a full picture unless I started from the beginning. However because there is a lot to talk about this will be in two parts. I have a degree in Computer Science which I obtained some years back, you don’t need to know the actual dates. In case it reveals my age, lol. My degree consisted of an introduction to computer science and all the aspects related to it Networking, Programming, Database etc. However it was a program based on understanding the theory part of it and did not offer much room for practicality. In my first programming class I feel in love with it and concluded that, that was what I was going to do. As I mentioned the practical aspect of my degree was non-existent except for our final year project which I worked on with some of the guys. And it was during that project that I ...

  Being Women’s month I thought it only right that I do something. A couple of months ago I wrote an article about my first experience with a computer that sparked my interest and love of technology. I talked about how, I had felt like an outsider looking into an elite club that I wasn’t invited to. How even after several years in the industry there were times I would walk into a room and I would feel like that little girl again seeking to be welcomed to this elite club. That my only way to defeat my inner demons was to tell that little girl that I never needed their invite to do what I love I just needed to do it. Then a few weeks later I was talking to my niece who was about to start college. Now my niece had used my laptop before mainly to get movies and series so I had just assumed she knew all about it. But on this particular day that she came to visit, she said words that stirred something in me, by announcing that she did not in fact know how to use a laptop. After gaining...

  This past week my cohort (c15) began the specialization section of the ALX program, in my last post I had talked about how overwhelmed and frustrated I felt towards the end of foundations. Which is the core of the program and runs for nine months. So in starting this new phase I knew that some things had to change in the way that I was approaching the program. One thing I had noticed early on is how I seem to have lost focus on why I was doing the program any way. Slowly it became more about scores, getting the work done just to be done with it and when this seemed in jeopardy I would get very stressed and frustrated. But over this past week I made a decision to pace myself, to become more aware of what was working and what was not. I had to back to my first love. The reason I joined the program in the first place, my desire and thirst to understand how things worked. Understanding became my focus, I realized how this brought back the excitement to do the work. That when I face...

  International Women’s Day Today is International Women’s Day and it dawned on me that in the past couple of years, mind you I only recently just became aware of this day. But let us stay on track I realized that on this day the many images I see are about celebrating women’s successes their achievements and all. Which isn’t necessary a bad thing but it  stirred up thoughts of my beliefs and non-beliefs on what is success. Growing up I had an image of what success would look like for me, I even went as far as how I would feel when that moment arrived. But somehow every time I achieved something in life how I expected it to feel and what it actually was were two contrasting things and being in this tech world that in itself was a rollercoaster ride. Success in my mind was defined by so many beliefs that I now realize were a function of so many factors that include societal expectations, cultural expectations as well as learned beliefs from those around me. And over the yea...