Participant Story: Ashley
Ashley is one of the participants of our six-month software engineering program! You can support her journey at techtonica.org/donate.
Proud Oakland native Ashley comes from a family that’s been working for the U.S. postal services for more than 6 decades. She followed in those footsteps, but with a bit of a twist: she chose the technology department.
Although she loved how connected to the community she was through her work with the post office, she wasn’t able to grow her technical skills as much as she’d like. So she started teaching herself JavaScript.
“Self-learning is three times as hard,” Ashley said of her early efforts to learn more on her own. “I really want to continue my growth and see how far this industry can take me.”
To get help from experienced engineers, she joined a structured study program that included a mentor, but it wasn’t an incredibly supportive experience.
“He broke down my confidence,” she said of the group’s instructor. “Everyone else had more experience than I did, and I didn’t know how to ask the right questions. So I learned to be more autonomous.”
Another upside of the group was meeting a student who told her about Techtonica. Attending Techtonica’s initial workshop let her know this was going to be a positive guided learning experience for her this time around.
“It was a welcoming and supportive environment where I didn’t feel like I had to shield away from everyone,” she said. “I liked the collaboration. It came naturally; it wasn’t forced.”
With this new opportunity in front of her, Ashley is excited about becoming a well-rounded engineer who can give back and make a difference for the people she cares about. One of those people is her now 99-year-old Grandma Lucy, who raised her.
“She loves her newspaper puzzles, so I want to make an app for special needs and elderly individuals to do things they want to do,” she said. “She is my heart. She’s motivating me to keep pushing and striving for my goals.”
Some of the best advice her grandmother has given Ashley is to be creative and authentic. And that’s exactly what she aims to do in tech.
“I want to be a face that says hey you can do this,” she said about the challenges facing her and other women of color breaking into the tech industry. “I want to change the game of this industry.”
If you or your company might be interested in supporting program participants like Ashley, please donate at techtonica.org/donate or look at techtonica.org/sponsor.
To read about our other participants, please click on their names below:
