Charting a New Path
The decision to grow my technical skills was made during my sophomore year. I was tired of being all theoretical and yearned to put my knowledge into practice by coding various projects. The quest began and I had a wonderful time learning Java and building mobile applications for Android. While walking down this path, I realized that there were other paths along the trail. They looked very inviting but I was afraid — what if I got lost? One path had a snake coiled menacingly on a thick tree, another seemed to have railway tracks, another had a few elephant heads popping here and there from the thickets, I saw a weird black cat in all the paths and lots of spider webs. I was ready to explore each path — Do it afraid is what motivational speakers say.
Armed with Google and Stack Overflow ammunition, I ventured into the first path with the snake. I was bitten terribly. The path with spider webs was more friendlier and the elephants were not so bad either. I got to befriend the weird black cat which showed me how to keep track of my progress as I moved down each path. All was well but I wanted to explore the first path. I looked down at my arm, where the snake had ferociously left its fanged teeth marks and decided some paths were best left alone. Downcast, I turned and began to walk away from that first path…
“Hey, hold up! Don’t go, I’ll walk with you and help you explore this path” came a voice so gentle and reassuring. “If you’re willing to give it another try, I will definitely guide you,” the voice continued. The voice turned out to be none other than Learn IT Girl (LITG), an international mentorship program with the aim of equipping women with technical skills by pairing each woman with a mentor.
I got to know about this wonderful platform from a friend of mine who had forwarded their information about the applications for the fourth edition via WhatsApp. I submitted my application and in March, I got the email that notified me of my successful application. I was paired with my mentor, Gunjan, all the way from India. LITG uses a great approach where the mentee gets to learn to code by working on a project. My first idea of a project to work on was an online shopping site using python. However, during that time, while at campus, there was an explosion of a lot of students going through depression with a few ending their own lives.
Thus, Lynn was born. Lynn, whose slogan is Lean on Me, is a counselor chat bot that aims to provide a platform for campus students to talk to when they are having low moments, to help uplift their spirits. When Lynn will be all grown up and more intelligent, it will be able to contact the student’s friends or family or counselor so that they don’t rely on a bot because it cannot do as much as what humans can. Human support and encouragement definitely goes a long way.
Lynn is built using Python — Flask framework with a mix of web development programming languages of HTML5, CSS3 and JQuery. Its dialog is created using Dialogflow, an API that creates its conversation knowledge and inference engine. With the guidance of my mentor, I was able to create Lynn and build its inference engine using Dialogflow. The 4 months were not easy, but my mentor helped me achieve my goals by creating chunks of sub-goals that formed my milestones in working on the project. Did I mention that we were 3 hours apart? Indeed, we had lots of Hangout calls, meeting at least once in a week. Sometimes we were in remote places meaning our internet connection would be terrible but we always kept in touch. I learned to code using Python online and Gunjan guided me through it. She even went ahead to create tests for me to complete to help test the knowledge I was learning. What I loved about my mentor was how she was able to dispel any fear I had regarding the project at hand. I thought creating a bot was something so magnanimous and impossible to begin but she reassured me that provided I did not give up, she will guide me throughout the 4 month journey. An awesome mentor, right?
To be honest, I almost gave up when the 4 month period expired and as mentees we were all required to submit our projects for the final evaluation. I was working on integrating the API to Lynn and it was proving difficult. Fortunately, LITG reached out to me through my email, where they check up on the mentees and was gracefully allowed a late submission of my project.
I finally earned my Diploma from the program. Is this the end then? No, rather it is a continuing process. The Python skills I gained from the program have given me the confidence to continue to work on improving Lynn’s intelligence and inference engine because the project, I believe, will really help students in campus, especially those who are unable to afford to see a professional counselor, when undergoing through depression. If you want to go fast, walk alone, if you want to go far, walk together — that is what a mentorship program does for you. It helps you venture into new territories, it teaches you how to fish and you end up trailblazing new paths in your life’s journey into a great destiny.
