Hear me out
The voice of a 20 year old girl from a mediocre engineering college who “wants” to code
Hi, I am Mansi, a junior (3rd year student, if you will) at K.J. Somaiya College of Engineering, Mumbai (I bet you haven’t heard that name before), one of the thousand engineering colleges in India. I am pursuing my Bachelors in Engineering in Information Technology. Yes, we have a course specifically for IT and not just Computer Science for a change. Over the course of 2 years, I have been exposed to innumerable buzzwords like “competitive programming”, “hackathons”, “full-stack development” and whatnot. More than 80% of my peers will not be able to explain what I just mentioned. None of this was/is ever mentioned in my college. If it wasn’t for Quora, I guess I wouldn’t be aware about it either.
Surfing through answers under the topic “Computer Programming” on Quora, I was acquainted with StackOverflow and Github initially. Slowly moving on to TopCoder and CodeChef and the likes. Then about PennApps, MHacks etc. Whatever I read, fascinated me and surprised me at the same time since we don’t have such an exposure here. I read about a lot of people, about my age, interning at the tech giants, contributing to the software industry, tinkering with code, debugging, creating really cool stuff, attending tech conferences, web summit, starting their own companies — basically making it big in the Silicon Valley. And then I looked at myself, who couldn’t even complete an assignment due in 2 days. At first, I was in awe. I was missing out so much. Although there were Indian students who were a part of such activities, they were only a handful. And those were from the prestigious institutes that you might have heard of like the IITs, NITs, IIITs, BITS et al.
I began stalking the profiles of the people I saw or the ones that were linked. And you know these hyperlinks, one leads to another and within a few hours I found myself in a different world. It took me a while to get back to reality. I visited personal websites, github accounts, blogs, linkedin profiles, topcoder profiles, then I googled the names to find out more information and I could not accept the fact that all these people were not more than 22 years of age! How insane could this get?!
I categorized them into:
i. Location — living in/near the Bay Area i.e. Silicon Valley
ii. Nerds and Geeks- childhood passion in programming/computers in general
iii. Educational sources — university reputation and connections, school groups, clubs, societies
iv. Parents in the software industry (I know I went a little too far)
Sadly, I could not place myself in any of the above mentioned categories, for my passion in computers had been passive. I read more articles and got to know about so many organizations that help students reach out in this field. What I found astonishing was that such a ‘portfolio’ is not a big deal at all. It’s common for a tech enthusiast! This is where I felt my self-esteem exit. Everyone had some form of head start. I could not have felt more sorry for myself. All I could think of was, “What if I grew up there?” or “I should have given my SATs and done my undergraduate in the USA!” A friend of mine chided me, “So what if they started early? It doesn’t matter how late you are in the game, as long as you are IN the game.” It then struck me. I will regret this time later. I had to start now. It doesn’t matter how fast I go, as long as I keep going. The only resources I have — my laptop and internet connection. It should be sufficient, right? Well, without any form of peer support or enthusiastic folks around me, it gets a little de-motivating.
It’s high time I embark on my journey but every time I try, I fail. Maybe my approach isn’t right. There is nobody to guide me. No friends who share a similar passion with whom I can discuss. I don’t have enough knowledge to strike conversations online with the people I have stalked.
I feel…helpless. I don’t want to use it as an excuse but, being a girl interested in technology seems to have its disadvantages. Nobody takes you seriously. I want to be able to code for a purpose. Just knowing HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP, C++, Java is not going to help me. My curriculum cannot take me to my destination. I want to create something, put my ideas to action. I’ve heard all those stories where one person does wonders with just his/her laptop. But they too fall into one of the four categories I mentioned before. All I can see is a dead end. No amount of googling has helped me find a solution. After seeing countless videos and reading way too much online, I found a lot of restrictions. Clubs that I wanted to a part of and which I felt were exactly what I needed right now, were limited to American residents or high school students. Could I feel more out of place? Even when I start building something like a website or try to make a web app, I don’t lose the interest but the motivation.
Through this Medium, I just wanted to convert my thoughts into words. I am open to all sorts of suggestions, ideas, motivations and even criticism. I can be reached via E-mail at mansijain2895@gmail.com.
