Participant Story: Dena
Dena is one of the participants of our six-month software engineering program! She sat down with Techtonica volunteer Mel Burke to share her story. You can support her journey at techtonica.org/donate.
Tell us a little about where you’re from and where you grew up.
I’m from Sacramento, but went to college in Santa Cruz to study theatrical lighting design.
What made you decide to apply for Techtonica?
The financial cost of a bootcamp was such a barrier, that I convinced myself I wouldn’t be able to succeed anyway, so I wouldn’t feel like I was missing out on anything. But one of my friends saw a flyer for Techtonica and told me to check it out because it was free.
I went to a couple of the Techtonica JavaScript workshops and they were really fun. It’s satisfying when something’s not working and you eventually figure out how to make it work. You feel like you’ve accomplished something.
Techtonica has helped change my mentality — I enjoy coding and I can do this.
What are you most excited to learn while in the program?
All the stuff I have no experience with at all — AJAX, jQuery, Vim. What’s Vim? I don’t know! When I learn about new methods, I think, “Wow, I didn’t know there was such a simple way to do something so complicated.”
It’s really cool that we’re all starting out not knowing that much about coding and trying to learn it together at the same time. It’s reassuring because I feel like it’s going to be stressful and difficult but there are all these other people who are also trying to do it. It feels nice.
All of the mentors I’ve been talking to are really great and really supportive. Everybody’s says, “If you’re having trouble, just let us know, we want to help you.” It’s heartwarming.
Is there anything you want to change about the tech industry specifically?
There needs to be more opportunity for people who don’t have it. For example, a friend of mine was interested in coding, but felt like because he’s not neurotypical that he wouldn’t be able to get a job. He feels like he’s too stupid to do it, and no one will hire him because of his personality. It would be cool if there were a way to change the perception so more people could realize it’s possible for them to do it.
But the first thing that really comes to mind for me is the impact that false information and Facebook had on our presidential election. So misusing technology for social destruction. If something was intended to bring people together but instead caused something bad to happen, I feel like addressing that pretty soon would be good.
What’s your dream project?
I want to make an app that you could use for meal planning and shopping so that you could make a meal plan for a week and the right ingredients for each recipe you put in there would be added to a shopping list. But I’ve also had ideas for coping strategies around Dialectical Behavioral Therapy — basically, gamification of skills for stressful situations. A lot of people I’ve talked with have mental health issues and want to see that become more of a priority.
You can see Dena tell her story at our launch celebration here.
If you or your company might be interested in supporting program participants like Dena, please donate at techtonica.org/donate or take a look at techtonica.org/sponsor.
