Final Thoughts

As I look back on this whirlwind of the Summer Immersion Program, I can see how much I have personally grown. I'd like to use my last blog to wrap up a few of my thoughts and to give a final peak into some behind the scenes moments of what made this experience so wonderful.

Over the course of the summer, I hope that I was able to motivate, encourage, and inspire the girls to see themselves as computer scientists. I hope I was able to do this both by being a teacher who gave them the resources and skills to code and by being a role model and mentor. Being part of such as diverse teaching team, representing different backgrounds, personalities, and identities, I found myself gain the confidence to say I knew how to code. One of my biggest concerns at the start of the program was coming from a nontraditional - and from my perspective, limited - computer science background. This greatly intimidated me at first, and made me less confident in the value I would bring to the teaching team and the benefit I would have to the girls. Knowing how summer unfolded and knowing how much I personally learned and grew, if I could have told myself one thing at the start of the program it would have been the one lesson that we tried so hard to impart on the girls – that there is not one path computer scientists take and that diversity is extremely valuable in this field. While I had been told this, it took actually participating in the program for me to recognize the value of my unique path and story. I wish that I hadn't been so doubtful of myself and that I had been more open and transparent about everything I was learning and how I was growing even as a TA, instead of initially feeling such a need to prove myself. I eventually saw how my cognitive science path would complement Winter's computer science degree, and give us unique backgrounds to contribute to discussions from. For example, when we discussed biases in data, I was able to share what I had learned in psychology classes about the human nature of biases and how to be aware of and prevent of biases that exist in data you use or collect. I also had the opportunity to share about digital humanities during a talk when we were encouraging the girls to be proud of what they had accomplished over the summer. Regardless of to what extent they want to pursue computer science in the future, we wanted them to see the computer skills and problem solving strategies they acquired this summer as useful assets to them in the future. I used digital humanities as an example of how they could integrate technology and a humanities subject they are interested in. I explained how the existence of such a field represents a public recognition of the need for people who are both computer scientists and passionate about humanities subjects. The computer skills they get to begin college with are highly valuable, and have a tremendous potential for impact in spreading awareness and advocating for change. Just a few days later, as they began brainstorming for their final projects, they got to see this firsthand.

Additionally, having a limited background of programming classes, I walked into this summer with the humility of knowing that I would have to learn alongside the girls. I also believe that learning along with the curriculum for the majority of the units allowed me to contribute a unique perspective to the teaching team. I used the curriculum to teach myself ahead of time, such as while Winter was teaching the class, and tried to refer to it as much as possible when making sample projects. I believe this gave me insight into how much the girls would know going into the lesson and how many resources they would need outside of what was provided. In addition, recently having to figure out the project solutions for myself made more conscious of how I could explain each step to the girls and foresight into predicting some of the obstacles and common errors the class would face. I found that wanting the proficiency to teach others was strong incentive for developing my own technical skills and fueling my curiosity. When we came across difficult lessons, I was motivated to relearn it for myself and persistently search for new and easier explanations. Teaching concepts is more than just being able to describe how to do it. It also requires the ability to break down thought processes and explain why you are doing something, and I personally benefited from this deeper understanding of what I was trying to teach. I felt this was important, as I didn't want the girls to leave feeling defeated by a topic and scared of incorporating it into their final project or intimidated of learning it in the future.

My very first webpage - made at training in Atlanta with help from Winter

My second webpage - the original blog

Ocean's 8 Wordcloud - made by analyzing a Twitter data set in Python

Earthquakes Map - made by analyzing a CORGIS data set in Python

I made plenty of mistakes as a teacher - I know there were plenty of times I didn't know the answer or actually gave them the wrong answer or left them more confused at the end of an explanation than they were when they first asked for help. I think this vulnerability and transparency, to admit that I don't know everything or that I make mistakes a lot, was actually beneficial, and I hope encouraging. I hope that my mistakes were not only learning opportunities for myself to strengthen my technical skills, but also learning opportunities for the girls to learn how to learn and persist. I hope they saw that programs are full of mistakes and it's ok to not know everything on your first of twentieth attempt. I hope that in not immediately knowing every answer, they got to see the problem solving strategies I use - and that knowing how to use Google and ask for help (because I relied on Sammy and Winter a lot!) represents resourcefulness, not weakness. I know that I gained confidence in my coding as a result of the girls continuing to ask for my help, ask questions, and for my opinions - and listen to my responses - despite the fact that I didn't always have a perfect or immediate answer. Teaching gave me the opportunity to learn some very useful skills in a motivating and supportive environment, and I genuinely had a fun time learning myself.

Along with the girls, I too have learned so much about the impact technology has on today's career fields. The participation by employees in the company was unbelievable. There were so many people who supported our program by speaking to our girls, visiting the classroom, giving advice, encouraging girls to reach out to them, spending lunch with us, having conversations with the girls, and sharing about their jobs and passions. I was touched and inspired to see working women take the time and interest in investing in the girls, and the diversity of jobs they represented. As important as it is to encourage students to pursue computer science, I believe it is equally as important to encourage students who are interested in other fields to learn computer science skills and utilize them in their perspective fields. As more and more jobs are incorporating aspects of technology, the number of both typical computer science jobs and jobs that require the integration of computer science and another field. We were very fortunate to hear from women working at Warner Bros. who have developed technology skills out of the demand for them to incorporate them into another area. They encouraged the girls in the importance of what they learned this summer. All of the girls have began to develop some very important, desirable, and increasingly necessary skills, and I believe that even girls who do not end up immediately pursuing computer science in college will eventually be greatly benefited and respected by having them.

Last Thursday was the graduation ceremony, where our girls had the opportunity to explain and display their projects for their family and those at Warner Brothers who have supported our program. As a teaching team, we know these girls are capable of so much, and that at graduation everyone will be able to see what they were capable of making in only two weeks. We love sharing about our girls and everything they are learning any chance we get. However, it was hard to explain exactly what happens in our classroom, so graduation was the perfect opportunity for the projects to represent it.

At the end of the day, there were only three of us on the teaching team. Our goal was not for our girls to see themselves in one of us, but to see how we use our unique characteristics in the computer science field and consider how their unique characteristics could play out in the field as well. We wanted our teamwork to be an example of how there isn't one type of computer scientist, but rather that the field of computer science is stronger when its computer scientists combine forces, bring unique strengths and perspectives, and collaborate. We wanted our classroom to be a space where these unique characteristics were welcomed and had a fun and supportive place to grow.

We were lucky that our whole team was equally desiring to invest in our class, and that we got along so well. Staying late after class was always an adventure - from rearranging the seating chart, reading the girls' journals, adapting the curriculum, discussion class dynamics, exploring the Warner Bros. lot, hanging out in LA, and talking about life - we found ways to make everything entertaining. I am so grateful for the lasting friendships that I formed with the teaching team. They made this job not only incredibly rewarding in what we were able to accomplish, but also ridiculously fun!

Post-work trip to 7-Eleven for free 7/11 slurpies

Ellen's parking spot

Bachelorette Catering

Our girls are going to change the world and we can't wait for it. They brought their kindness, intelligence, humor, craziness, resilience, creativity, and heart to class every day, making computer science way more than just coding. I am so proud of how these girls grew this summer, everything they learned, and what they were able to accomplish, and I am going to miss them very much!