Humans That Code : Rina Alvarado
An Interview for Bitscademy
“I was Editor-in-Chief of our yearbook in high school, which meant that I was in charge of all the departments of the yearbook, the overall vision, keeping to deadlines, making every single page. It was awesome. That’s when I realized I wanted to work in design. That also coincided with the time when Myspace was popular. You could delete their entire layout and start afresh. So I would look at other people’s templates and notice abbreviations like ‘DIV’ and ‘CLASS’. Basically I first became aware of code by tweaking Myspace templates.
After I graduated from UCSB with a degree in Language, Culture and Society, I thought I wanted to be an art teacher but the pay was awful. So I decided to go back to school to pursue a Masters in Web & Graphic Design. Mostly that was because I regretted not doing those subjects in the first place.
Once I took my Introduction to Programming class, it was set in stone: I loved coding! Previously, programming had been this complex, confusing thing that I somehow tried to figure out on my own. But now I was being given the play-by-play and I completely understood it. HTML or CSS-wise, I had fun with everything we learned. But JavaScript was a little bit more difficult. However, in the next class I did, both JavaScript and jQuery became less intimidating.
Sometimes I think I hate coding because it’s so hard. But after I get it, for a brief moment I feel like I can do anything. Then I get my next complex coding issue and I feel defeated again. But then I eventually solve that too. It’s like a rollercoaster. At the same time I’m aware that I’ve only been doing it for 2 years, and that I’ve only begun to feel confident in the last six months.
I feel like I have aha moments every day with coding although sometimes it takes a lot of logic to break things down. Initially you always find making a string of code to be quite complex. Another thing is that JavaScript and jQuery are very sensitive so if you get even just one character wrong, the entire function won’t work. It takes a lot of practice to be able to look at a line of code and quickly see that needle in the haystack but the more I work with JavaScript, the faster I can figure things out. Once I get a function to work, it feels like magic.
My grandma, who was a graphic designer for a company that worked for NASA, always encouraged me to be an engineer. Also my Dad’s hobby was to build and rebuild computers. Even though he never went to college, he could fix any computer. When I told him I was going back to school to learn how to code, he was really happy.
My Dad is Mexican, Native American and Spanish and my Mom is Italian and Irish. I’m the first to go to college at all, out of both families. And now I’m the first to pursue a Masters. From when I was around 4 or 5 years old, I was considered to be ‘a natural learner.’ My whole family would always say, ‘Wow! You’re so smart and you’re really artistic!’. Being smart was something I identified as my whole life.
I’ll try to explain the most basic coding things to pretty much anyone in my family, and everyone but my Dad will look at me with their eyes glazed over. They’ll say, “You’re speaking a whole different language,’ and I’ll say, ‘Yes I am”.
I like coding because it’s something that most people can’t do and that makes me feel special. It’s like a secret, a secret thing that I can do. Also I look around in most of my classes and I think of the industry and it’s mostly men; I am aware that I’m a woman that codes, and this makes me feel even more special. I have so much respect for anybody who can code.
Every business, everybody — today especially — needs a website. It’s awesome to think that within an hour, depending on how elaborate the project, I can build a website using my head and my fingers. I’ll sit down, sketch it out on paper, look at it, consider response of design, navigation structure, and figure it out. And no matter what I design, for the most part I get it to look exactly the way I want it to look.
When I graduate at the end of this year, I want to work in UX/UI design for branding or advertising agencies. My ultimate goal is to be a creative or art director for a small company.
The whole industry is changing very fast. I hear we’re moving past the screen altogether. In the few years before I entered school, everyone’s focus was on apps and what you could do on a screen. Now it’s more, ‘What can you do without a screen?’ There are endless possibilities with programming. I’m excited to see what people will be able to do with code, where it can go. The progress of this industry is going to keep on climbing for the next 50 to 100 years. Despite inventions like the smartphone, we’re actually just at the very starting point. So to anyone who is considering becoming a coder, I’d say now’s a really great time to get into it. There are so many resources available now that weren’t available even just 2 or 3 years ago. And next year or the year after that, there will be even more resources. Basically any time starting from now is a great time to begin. You’ll be learning from a strong historical foundation and from other people’s mistakes. It takes time, it takes a couple of years to get really solid in your coding, but it’s better to start now than to dwell on it. Two or three years from now, you’re only going to be growing exponentially at that point.”
— Rina Alvarado, Coder
