Hi… I am #GirlDressedInCode

And this is how I got dressed!!

Always been the daddy’s girl, got candies for all the ups and downs I had in my childhood. I only had to get good marks in academics, be nice to others and everyone’s happy with me. Didn’t had to worry on the issue of being a girl. I always felt privileged and at the same time felt equal. It was an easy life. Everyone was supportive and always taught me to stand for myself and do what I like… and what is right.

In the last semester of my post-graduation — I was ready to walk into the world. Ready to make an impression. Ready to influence. Ready to be born again.

“Suit Up !!” …she says. “You are already late. Uber is arriving!!”

“Yeah... Don’t worry girl. I’ll be fine. Let’s meet up at #Chaayos at 5 after the interview” … me all ready for my first interview 👩‍🎓. “It’ll be my treat today.”

“All the best panda… now go!!” … she pushed me out of the room.

[2 hours later]

“Rashmi, come in please!!” …interviewer asked. “So you know python?”

“Umm… hmm” … I nodded.

[45 minutes later]

“Hello!!” … on the call with mom. “Mom I am coming home!!!!!! I got rejected.”

[Realising… practically I was really bad at python. Umm …really bad!! 😒]

I was naive. Obviously, I was bound to fail.

But I didn’t go back.

I pulled up my sleeves, learned python on my own and used it for some flask web apps. Still, programming was not that interesting for me… and quite boring at times. I just wanted to get a job, that’s it!! Never gave it a thought other than this perspective.

In the meantime, I worked on one research paper for my post-grad. on analyzing the perception of the public towards GMOs from data collected over twitter streaming API. It took weeks for me to collect sufficient data. It was fun.

Everyone should code.

Heard it a lot. Read it a lot. But it took me a lot of time to figure out the most important piece of the puzzle.

I did code. Yes I did. I liked programming but was not very passionate about it.

Why?

Because programming in itself has applications in almost each and every industry. And finding the industrial application I wanted to work in… was the main thing I needed to figure out.

It’s not about writing some code for anything and everything. It’s about doing what you like — and solving those problems efficiently using programming.

Programming was boring for me to write web apps. But it was not boring when I worked on my research paper. It was fun. Well.. seriously it was. Felt like I was doing something innovative. But… frankly most of the fun stuff I was doing with the help of libraries. I was doing sentiment analysis and semantic analysis using some third-party APIs.

Never-mind… after few more interview rejections. Joined an institute as a Python Instructor, to sharpen my programming concepts and also because I love teaching.

Teaching python was totally brain opening phase for me. Not only I was able to question programming concepts from my student’s point of view, but also I was practicing python by writing code daily. It was supposed to be a temporary gig, but it was fun. Loved it more than I could have imagined. Went on like this for a few months.

In the meantime I was getting more and more involved with how I could have improved my research paper. What new things I can do with it... What new things are happening out there in the wild… And was looking over the applications of Artificial Intelligence closely.

It‘s new, it’s fun, it’s exciting and it’s future! — it’s Artificial Intelligence

In no time it became the thing. The thing I wanted to dive into. I was motivated to program for it. I was prepared with a good hand on Python for the web using Flask and libraries like NumPy, Pandas, Sklearn, matplotlib, etc. for data analysis. And being a python instructor, I was more than interested to teach others about this amazing field of science.

Things are not just engineered here rather it’s farmed.

Soon after, I became the data science trainer in the same institute.

The craving started. Yeah… it did!!

Craving for learning. Craving for teaching. Craving for reaching to a wider public. Craving for making a difference. People should know about this field that is yet mostly unexplored.

One thing led to another. And here I am… writing my first blog. Speaking out loud to everyone — men or women, old or young, …black or white.

This is the journey of who I want to become. An influence!!

For many following weeks, I will be putting out my existing knowledge in words. With a challenge of growing my knowledge each day.

Write what I know …and spread the words out.

Learn and write what I don’t know …and spread the words out.

I will be listing down all the future endeavors from here on now in the Medium posts in order to track my progress.

This is #GirlDressedInCode signing off for now. Ttyl. 👍🏻

Eat. Sleep. Code. Repeat. 👩‍💻