How Did We End Up in Silicon Valley…?
From Sweden to the Midwest… how did we end up here?
Eva: You know, I don’t think I ever asked you why you chose tech?
Abby: Mhmm…
Eva: Well, why did you?
Abby: Well, my story begins in a 6ft x 6ft guidance counselor office in nowhere, Ohio.
Eva: Ha ha, where exactly is nowhere? I don’t think I’ve been there…
Abby: A strange location, but I grew up in a small town in Ohio where everyone knew everyone else’s business… and you could share the roads with Amish buggies. I was signing up for an extracurricular class for my sophomore year of high school when I found myself in the tiny guidance counselor office. As I glanced at our list of classes, I saw one I’d never heard of: Computer programming.
“What’s that?” I asked my guidance counselor. “Oh, that’s a hard course. There’s tons of work — I don’t think you’d like it” he quickly responded.
I paused. I was a stubborn child, though. “Great. I’ll take it” I responded. Maybe I wanted to spite him and show him that it wasn’t too hard for me. Or maybe it was fate. But either way, I went in knowing less than nothing about what computer programming was, but I was determined to follow through with it.
Eva: You must have liked the class then?
Abby: I loved it! Looking back, I was terrible at coding. One program I wrote had 5,000 lines of code. And I thought that was good code. I struggled and struggled and struggled but even so, I kept trying and enjoyed it so much. I didn’t realize it could become a career until the end of high school, and by then, I had gained a bit more confidence in my abilities.
Eva: What made you want to make it a career?
Abby: I’m a pretty creative person by nature and I love brainstorming and daydreaming whenever possible. The problem: I never knew how to make my ideas into reality. For me, computer science was that avenue. I could finally make something on my own without having to go to Michael’s or Joann Fabrics and glue things together.
Eva: That is interesting, as it is somewhat similar to my story…well the core reason anyway.
Abby: Really? So….why did you end up in tech?
Eva: Heh…probably by accident. 😊
Abby: Ooooh intriguing. Do explain!
Eva: Well my story begins in a tiny country in the Nordics. It’s the size of California and called Sweden. I grew up in Stockholm, the capitol, which is somewhat the size of San Francisco. In high school I pondered music, languages, writing and other things as a career. In the end I didn’t know what I wanted, so I picked what my dad and sister had chosen for their careers: engineering.
But I chose computer science by accident…or maybe “by chance” is a better wording for what happened.
Story begins one late night in Stockholm city. I was stalked by a sketchy character in the subway and I decided to stay close to this proper-looking person with a suit and tie. Not the smartest survival strategy maybe, as a paranoid version or outcome could have been that they were working together…but I calculated my chances and it turned out to be a good idea in the end. Mr Suit-guy and I got to talking and it turns out he was an engineer with a degree from the same college I had applied to. When he found out I was applying, he said he would choose computer science if he were to do it all over again. “That is the future” he said. So when I got home that night, like 1 am in the morning, I added the computer science program as my first priority to my application and sent it in the next day. I knew it was only a small chance I would get accepted, so I didn’t worry too much that I lacked computer science skills. Most likely I would end up with chemical engineering, which was my second choice.
You see, I had only taken one class of computer programming in high school and the teacher had surprised me with an A! He said I had solved everything differently than the rest of the class, and that it could mean one of two things. Either I was really bad or I had some kind of very creative talent. He wanted to encourage a path for me, as he didn’t know enough about computers to tell (yeah, this was his statement!) and he had a sense it was where the world was going. My teacher was in his sixties at the time. Smart guy, turns out, as he took a chance on me and it changed my confidence. On that late night when I was choosing the next chapter of my life, this teacher’s words popped into my head and helped influence my future career path. So by accident…more or less.
Abby: So does this mean you started college without knowing how to code? Brave.
Eva: Yep. I had basically just “programmed” DOS systems when I jumped into algebra math and Scheme programming — to learn the basics. That was me alright: jumping right in with no clue how to do things, haha! Still is a strong character streak of mine.
But this was 100 years ago, so it was less common knowledge I guess, and hence it was semi-fine. Until I met my classmates, who had (it seemed) programmed since they were 10–12 years old and built their own computers, I freaked out and felt misplaced. What had I done? Could I do this? I felt like I was drowning for a bit there two-three months in.
I had a hard first semester in college, but I was pretty good at math. No longer the best in my class though, which was a major rude awakening. Sidenote: it is a big psychological hit no one tells you about when you move from high school top-of-the-class to college and suddenly meet your equals and you are “just mediocre”. Trust me, someone should warn A-students of “failure” and write a handbook in it.
Anyway, back to the story: I made it through the exams that first semester, because of my math skills. My coding however was to describe it kindly, “creative”. I think I had at one point a program of 200 lines of code that others had solved in 20… Start seeing the pattern here, my dear? 😉
I did however sometimes solve things differently in a way that impressed the teachers. I remember hand-writing code on paper and handing it in and they said it was a new way to solve the problem. I honestly never did programming for the love of programming, so I wasn’t really chasing the “best code” in the class. I was chasing something else. For me, programming was a tool to solve interesting problems. And that is what I realized and what kept me going all the way to my M. Sc. degree, some years later, in Computer Science. Programming is a tool to create anything, the world was wide open.
Later I chose my major in AI, Autonomous systems, and Robotics (again, 100 years ago). Pretty cool when thinking about how hot those topics are today, and how the world has changed, right?
So what is the takeaway here Abby? How about:
Don’t worry if your first coding sucks. Those 5000 (or 200) lines of code or “I have never seen it solved this way before” comments could be signs of creativity or undiscovered talent. It takes practice and once you nail it, coding can be an awesome way to create new things and solving a problem. Remember that coding is a means to solve problems — any problems you’d like to solve! And if someone insists on pretty or streamlined code, I am sure you can even code a program to help with that. 😉
Abby: Love it!
