Don’t be intimidated.
Hey there!
I am an African American woman who started coding in elementary school. I remember when I was in in the 10th grade my computer programming instructor asked me to enter a computer programming contest with two male classmates. I was the only African American. I didn’t think I was good enough but, I joined them. During the actual competition, I was only able to complete two programs total. I felt so sad. I felt I had let my team down. Then at the award ceremony it was announced that we came in first place. You should have heard the silence when I with my afro walked up to accept the award with my Caucasian and Asian male team mates. This was in the eighties and everyone in the audience was literally stunned. My instructor told me that we won by two programs. I cried. I thought I had just road on my teammates coat tails but, my two programs helped win the competition. It still makes me cry to this day and I still have the medal. Computer code doesn’t care what color or gender you are. It is just a tool and you are there to use it just like everyone else. Don’t be intimidated by it. Just learn how it works and then use it to create the world you want. I went on to become and engineer, a software developer, a web entrepreneur and a software patent attorney. I won’t tell you that the journey was easy but, I am glad that even when I was scared, even when I failed, even when I wanted to give up completely, I decided to just keep going. Sometimes that’s all it takes.
Sonya Jean Bible, B.S., M.S., J.D., LL.M
