tales-of-cs

[tales-of-cs]

Bachelorette of Science

Starting high school, I had no idea what career I wanted to pursue. It was only in my sophomore year, when my sister entered her first year of college as a computer science (CS) major, that I had ever considered taking a programming class. Junior year of high school, I took my first dive into the computer science field, a course titled Java programming. In a class of fourteen boys, I was one of three girls, one of whom dropped the class after a week. As a senior in college, I’m approaching my sixth year in this field, and I have dozens of computer science courses and three internships under my belt. While I’ve met many more women in my classes and in the workplace, in my experience, there’s been quite an extreme gender disparity, and a distinct “bro” culture to be observed.

Wait, Where’d Everybody Go?

Even though Endicott College is a liberal arts school, given that more and more girls are entering STEM fields, and computer science is a quickly growing field of high demand, I had expected to enter my freshman year with a large class of fellow CS majors, and at least a few other girls. And at the very beginning, I thought I was right! I walked into full classrooms of about 20 students, with at least a third of them other women. By the second semester, I realized I was too optimistic. The thing I had forgotten about CS is that the first couple courses tend to weed everyone out. I believe a large part of this is due to the material, rather than a sexist environment. I mean, binary search algorithms...? Object oriented programming? Digital signal processing?? It all sounds so dry and confusing, I even made one of those terms up and you didn’t notice. I’m just kidding, they’re all real, but you definitely believed me.

By sophomore year at Endicott, the other STEM majors had fulfilled their CSC101 requirements, and over a third of my other classmates switched majors. Class sizes had dwindled to single digits, and every new course I would find myself as yet again one of just two or three women. Currently, I am one of just five CS majors in the graduating class of 2021 at Endicott College, and the only woman.

Women Belong in the Front End

Computer science is such a large and multifaceted field, and even though there is such a small female percentage, there is still an unspoken dichotomy between male developers and female developers. The current stereotype is that men do the “heavy lifting” of development, what we call the “back end:” server maintenance, data organization, code optimization, scripting, and the like, while girls do what is called the “front end:” the end that deals with user interactions and aesthetics. Essentially, if programming were like building a house, people in the industry would assume a man’s work would be designing the blueprints, building the entire infrastructure, inspecting for vulnerability, and building new additions, while a woman’s work would be interior decorating and holding open houses.

So what, right? Technically, this rings true; there are more female front end developers than female back end devs. If it’s true, then what’s the issue? While I’d like to agree with this sentiment, the problem with this stereotype is that the common consensus is that front end development “isn’t real programming.” Front end developers memorize programming languages, work with multitudes of programming software, require years of experience, and have to keep up with ever-changing technology just like back end devs, but front end development is seen as less difficult or important than back end. As it turns out, more women entering the field wasn’t the solution, because in turn, another way to belittle our expertise was created.

Having to Prove It

Personally, this kind of gender disparity and social stigma has had real consequences in the classroom and the workplace. I feel as though I’m no matter my skill set, I always have to make up for the fact that I’m a woman. I have to prove that I’m a real programmer. I can’t be just as good as my male coworkers, I have to be better.

Subsequently, It takes a lot of courage for me to ask questions of my male superiors. I find myself worried that over time if I don’t understand right away, I’ll come off as ditsy or clueless, and they’ll discredit my entire background over one question. A fair amount of times, after I have finally summoned the courage to ask a superior for clarification, I have been patronized. On a few occasions, I’ve been laughed at, had eyes rolled at me, and given an impromptu lesson of basic material I had learned years ago.

It’s Not Just the Entry Level

At first, I thought I was mistaking the patronization I’ve experienced as sexist, when really it could be attributed to the fact that I’m just a student. I was sure they treated every new person the way they’ve treated me. A bit of reflection on my past experiences taught me that this was not the case. Not only do my male coworkers get treated with more respect, but I’ve witnessed my female supervisors and teachers receive the same treatment that I do.

My high school Java programming class was taught by a woman, who got her start decades ago when the field was even less accessible to women. On a semi-regular basis, I observed some interesting behavior from my male classmates, which included trying to correct her mid-lesson, asking her for help and then subsequently ignoring her advice, and, though I hate this term, “mansplaining” basic concepts to her.

Looking to the Future

Over time, we’ve realized that sexist behavior isn’t exclusive to the football jocks anymore, and in fact, never was. Computer science folks aren’t a nerdy subculture of kids who got picked on in high school anymore, it’s an ever-expanding field with the highest demand in the job market. Allowing this kind of sexist behavior to continue and encouraging more women to enter the field without addressing the issues within the culture will just lead to more women feeling ostracized within our own schools, workplaces, and communities.

While I have gone in depth on the sexism I’ve experienced, I don’t want it to come across as an inescapable daily experience. For every one condescending classmate, coworker, or supervisor, there have been dozens who acknowledge the stigma, and treat me and other female programmers with the same respect they do for each other. I think that as nerd culture steeps into the mainstream, and becomes more and more socially acceptable, the CS field, in turn, is becoming more diverse. In my internships and in the classroom, I’ve met a lot of great, outgoing people who are talented programmers. Gone are the days of your average antisocial IT guy who worships Star Wars. I have a lot of hope for the future of the computer science field, that with a little reform, in time, it will be a welcoming environment for everyone.

[tales-of-cs]

The MacBook Air Packs a Processing Powerful Punch into a Pretty, Portable and Affordable Personal Computer

In all my years using computers, be they desktop setups or simple laptops, they were always borrowed from my father’s work, and they always ran Windows. Everyone of them was bulky and outdated, but as a kid playing flash games and watching YouTube I didn’t mind.

In 2017, my father gave me an old HP ProBook running Windows 10, and for the most part it handled college work pretty well. All I needed was to access the internet and do small coding projects, which was easily within the threshold of what it could handle. However, tasks involving large amounts of processing is where they always had the most trouble. This was perhaps most notable when I started taking a video game programming class, and ten minutes of running Unity (a 3D game programming application) had the fan running like a jet turbine and the surface feeling like a hibachi grill.

In July of last year, my internship employer sent me a MacBook Pro for remote software development work. After my internship ended, I sent it back, feeling a large void in my life. Compared to the MacBook Pro, my old ProBook felt like a typewriter. After having a taste of what I could be working with, I decided it was time to buy my own laptop for the first time. With some advice from my partner, I settled on a slightly slimmer, slightly less powerful, and slightly less expensive MacBook Air. I went with the 2020 version, which uses Apple’s own M1 CPU, (computer’s brain), 16gb RAM, (allows the computer to multitask quickly), and a 512gb hard drive (~350 movies, ~150k songs, or ~128m single page documents).

Aesthetics

I chose the Space Gray model, because gold doesn’t compliment my skin tone as well. Apple is known for their simple, sleek designs and this is no exception. It is incredibly thin and lightweight, and it is evident Apple has put serious effort into making it have as much smooth, continuous, level surface area as possible. All sides of the laptop are single panes of machined aluminum, perfectly flat save for some unobtrusive vents and ports, and — this amazes me — no fan at all.

It has just two USB-C ports, and one 3.5mm headphone jack. The lack of ports on the device may be problematic for anyone who hasn’t taken the plunge into a Bluetooth-connected lifestyle. Devices like SD cards and ethernet cables are going to require a USB-hub to provide that connectivity, which means spending even more money and a less ergonomic experience. If every laptop accessory you own is Bluetooth enabled, you won’t have to worry. However if not, the lack of ports and subsequent need for adapters may throw off the sleek design and add to the tangle of wires in your desk drawer.

The keyboard features firm scissor switches that are very satisfying to type on in both short bursts and extended periods. The low-tolerance design of this device means the keyboard sits incredibly close to the display when the laptop is closed; you’re not going to be fitting a keyboard cover on this device without risking damage to the display no matter how much you prefer silicone keycaps.

The trackpad, while it may seem jarringly large for anyone new to the MacBook line, is responsive and accurate every time. Instead of being a physical button, the trackpad on MacBooks detects presses and emits a subtle vibration that’s indistinguishable from an actual button, yet sleeker and more reliable. I’ve come to prefer this trackpad over the traditional two-button trackpad designs on most laptops.

The only issue I have with this laptop’s hardware is that the screen has a glossy finish rather than semi matte. This makes the image display vibrant and color-accurate — but only in the right light while perfectly clean. Its glossy display becomes a distraction in bright rooms as glare is very noticeable, especially as dust and finger smudges begin to accumulate.

Performance

The Operating System (OS) is the software that is preloaded on every machine and carries out every task. The design language (how the computer’s interfaces, menus, and applications look) of macOS is always consistent and up to date. One thing you’ll notice about Windows 10 is that Microsoft likes to keep supporting older technology for as long as possible, so their newest OS will include design decisions from as early as 1998, making the design language inconsistent and cluttered. Apple is much more “out with the old, in with the new,” so when using macOS, every style is the same across the board and leads to a more enjoyable user experience. Users who already own Apple devices will find migrating between devices completely seamless.

I am floored by the performance of the Macbook Air. I’ve updated to the most recent version of macOS, Big Sur, and I consistently have at least five Safari tabs open and two programming applications running with no issues. At times, I also run an Android development application, a second OS running Android, and Unity all at once and it hasn’t ever hiccuped, slowed down, or gotten too hot. 3D game development on a laptop as thin as an iPhone that has no fan is an astonishing feat. Starting up has never taken more than twenty seconds, which is a cinch compared to my old ProBook that would hover in the two minute range. The battery life is also very impressive; I can work the entire day, sometimes over eight hours straight without a single recharge.

These days, if you’re not a serious PC gamer or software developer, pretty much any laptop on the market can handle whatever you need to do. With many laptops, you have to choose between style and performance, but the MacBook Air covers both bases astonishingly. I had thought a laptop like this would completely break the bank, but I purchased this at a student discount for $1400, which is smack dab in the middle, if not on the lower end, of the current laptop price range, and it has given me hours of battery life and no lag or latency whatsoever. If you’re a student, programmer or otherwise, the MacBook Air is a solid investment.

[tales-of-cs]

My Sister The SysAdmin

Growing up with my older sister Jaden, I never had to wonder where she was in the house or what she was doing, because she was always in her room, under her loft bed, on her laptop. My father had loaned my sister and I each a spare from his office, and I swear it was like Jaden would be damned if she didn’t use it for all it had left. She was an avid fan of computer games, but would also take time to really understand the machine she was using. As a little kid, whenever I would run into a problem with my laptop, she would be able to fix it with what I could only assume was wizardry. (In reality, it was probably as simple as toggling a single setting that I had accidentally flipped.) Eventually, she would teach me how to troubleshoot issues myself, and the satisfaction of being able to solve a problem on my own was in part what got me into CS (Computer Science) myself.

Eventually Jaden’s interest in computers flourished into her starting a career in IT (Information Technology). Recently I took the time to sit down with her to have a chat about her experiences in the IT field. Jaden, 24, is currently right between jobs right now, about to start her very first day at a new company this Monday. Formerly a Systems Administrator at New Hampshire based digital marketing company Silvertech, she has decided to move into an Associate Consulting Engineer role at CDW, an Illinois-based worldwide provider of software, hardware, and IT services.

What careers did you want to pursue when you were younger?

Well, as you know, I used to use Gimp to edit photos when I was in middle school, at the time I was considering being a graphic designer. I had a brief period where I wanted to be a dermatologist as well, and as I got to college age I had wanted to be a software developer.

You started at UNH majoring in CS, how did you decide to major in that, and then what made you switch to IT?

I joined the CS program because I really enjoyed my Java programming class in high school. I decided to switch to IT because the CS/IT majors take a lot of the same classes during the first two years and I liked the IT classes much more than the CS classes. I gravitated towards computer networking and introductory web development and was bored by the topics covered in my programming classes. They can definitely be painfully boring.

Did you get along well with classmates? What can you say about the IT “crowd”?

I got along well with my classmates and found that the IT crowd is very “down to earth” and everyone is willing to help each other out. It didn’t feel ultra competitive like I’m sure other majors are.

No antisocial sweaty geeks?

Oh you know that those guys are inevitable. Few and far between, though. For the most part everyone was very outgoing.

What other job experiences have you had, what were the best and worst parts of those?

My first real IT job was as an Engineering Tools/IT Intern with BAE Systems [international defense, aerospace and security company.] My duties included remotely installing software for the Engineering team and creating software deployment packages so that colleagues could download their necessary software from a catalog if the software permitted it. I liked the job overall and got a feel for working at a large, international company. My least favorite aspect was that there was a good amount of downtime and as an intern, I had very restricted access to BAE’s systems so I often had to ask for additional work.

During my junior year of college, I worked as an IT helpdesk person for an Intellectual Property law firm called Finch & Maloney. The best part of the job was the freedom to tackle a larger variety of tasks — setting up new laptops, maintaining server backups, working on a new website for the company, maintaining Active Directory and Microsoft 365.

What has kept you going in every day, what’s the best thing about your job?

The best part of my job is that there is always something else to learn and something I can work on that will improve the company’s productivity — automating a process using scripting, creating documentation, researching new tools.

Is it difficult to keep up with the ever changing technology?

It can be, but that is more of a blessing in disguise in that a lot of the changes make our lives easier.

What does a typical day look like?

Handling tickets as they come in — requests from developers to restore databases/files between development environments, answering questions from colleagues about our hosting environment, patching and maintaining the hosting environment in Azure & AWS [Amazon Web Services], maintaining security certificates, spinning up new servers, or serverless architectures for upcoming client website launches.

Do you ever have to work with difficult people?

I think that’s one of the few guarantees, no matter what industry you work in. In general, expressing sympathy for the person’s situation — you know, stress, tight deadlines, that kind of thing — goes a long way when someone is being difficult.

What's the dumbest ticket you’ve ever received?

Oh gosh. Back when I was working at the internal IT helpdesk, we had someone reach out because her desktop wasn’t working and it had actually just been powered off. Brilliant.

Have you ever experienced challenges in the workplace, as a woman in a male dominated field?

Definitely, but never in a really overt way… I often wonder if clients question my credibility when they first interact with me on a conference call.

How important is company culture to you?

It is highly important to me and one of the main reasons I stayed with SilverTech for as long as I did. I think it’s great when you have a company composed of people who are passionate about what they do but don’t take themselves too seriously — there wasn’t anybody who was “off limits” when it came to friendly mockery or jokes. Everyone had a great attitude and tried to create a fun atmosphere.

Do you have a good work-life balance, is it easy to find time for hobbies?

This was one of the reasons I left my job at SilverTech — we have been understaffed in the hosting side of IT so it felt like I had to be available at the drop of a hat all of the time. That was a source of stress for me and will hopefully see an improvement at CDW.

You mentioned you’re moving to a new job very soon, tell me about that.

I decided to pursue this new career because I would like to shift to more project work and work directly with clients in a capacity that is more than the website pre-launch and launch meetings at the very end of the project. During the training process for the position with CDW, I will also receive certifications such as Security that I’d already been looking at getting but wasn’t able to pursue due to budget.

Where do you hope to see your career going? 

I see myself staying in more of a consulting role than traditional Systems Administrator. Maybe pursue becoming a manager in a few years.

[tales-of-cs]

From the Farm to the Firm

Kevin Henry grew up on a dairy farm on the Canadian border, and now acts as Network Admin for Boston law firm Wolf Greenfield & Sacks

Had it not been for my father teaching me to use a computer at age 2, I probably never would have discovered my interest in the computer science field. My father, Kevin Henry, had an exponentially tougher time getting into the field himself, considering he grew up on a dairy farm, in Northern Vermont, in the ‘70s.

The Henry farm was started in 1927 by my great grandfather and has been passed down two generations, still being run by two of my uncles. Henry Farm, located in Alburgh, Vermont, spans about 750 acres and houses over 200 dairy cows. As the oldest of his five brothers, Kevin was already well versed in feeding the cows before he even learned to read. “I remember feeding the cows hay and the calves milk by age four or so,” says Kevin, “We would milk in the morning, race to get through the shower and onto the school bus, come home, feed the cows, eat dinner, and then milk again. We would squeeze in some homework, and TV then hit the bed and start over the next morning.”

By the time he got to high school, he had very little exposure to computers at all. “I think my ‘Common Applications for Computers’ class when I was a sophomore in high school was my first interaction with computers, aside from arcade games,” he says, “I remember I liked my drafting classes but using the CAD [Computer-Aided Design] software was even more impressive to me.” He explains that among his favor classes was an “introductory to Computer Applications class that taught us a text-based word processor, a spreadsheet like calculations application and I think a database,” he says, “all on what I think I remember was a Tandy TRS-80 or IBM PC equivalent circa 1985… Well, I took the class in ‘85 or ‘86 but the computer was likely older, but still seemed cool and state of the art to me.” When it came time to graduate, Kevin says he was “unsure about what I wanted to do after high school, and I was very sure I did not want to stay on the dairy farm as a career,” he jokes dryly.

He recalls that as a junior playing chess in school, a senior said that  he was going across the street to take an ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery) test and join the Navy. A few weeks later, he takes the test himself on a computer and scores really well. He explains that the Army recruiter, in the office right next door to the Navy recruiter, mentioned that he had a 4 year enlistment option in Military Intelligence. “At the time, I knew about as much about Army Military Intelligence training as I did about the Navy Nuclear Science program — very close to nothing,” he says. He explains that since the Navy recruiter offered a 6 year enlistment, choosing the Army would land him in college faster.

At age 18, standing tall at 5’8”, weighing in at a hefty 116 lbs, he decided to join the Army. In order to meet the 118 lb weight requirement, he downed a box of powdered donuts and a quart of chocolate milk on the morning of his physical before basic training.

“While I was in the Army I knew slightly more [about computers] than others so I was sent to a database programming class,” he says. “I was working on IBM compatible computers, pre-PS/2. I then created a couple databases, mainly using dBaseIII to maintain security personnel that was previously maintained by editing a text document.”

“At some point, while in the Army, I started looking into UVM and the degrees offered,” he says. Fresh out of his service, he decided to enroll at UVM as a CS major in the Engineering, Mathematics and CS dept, ultimately leaving just one semester before he was slated to graduate. “The Business School hired me to be their Systems Administrator in my senior year, even before I finished my degree,” he explains.

These days, he’s a senior network administrator at Wolf Greenfield and Sacks in Boston. When a coworker of his at UVM moved jobs to Wolf Greenfield, he asked my father to join him. He’s been working as a network admin for twenty years. “Now I do a lot of managing and monitoring of the systems in place to ensure they have the best availability for our user community,” he says, “among other things I.T. related, my two-person team manages about 100 servers, 30 or so network switches, 3 office locations, and the Virtual Private Networking and Remote Access of the 400 users.”

“My favorite part of my job is designing and deploying new systems and networking segments and even the day-to-day management of them,” he says. Having stayed in the field for so long, I ask him what he likes about it. “Staying current with every day I.T. changes is like surfing an educational knowledge wave that you have to stay on top of or wipe out,” he says, “There is so much to learn and familiarize yourself with day to day that it seems to change enough to keep things interesting.”

I asked him about his coworkers, who are mostly other IT workers and lawyers. “Wolf Greenfield is an Intellectual Property Firm — Patents, Trademarks and Copyrights, and therefore we have very talent specific attorneys and technical specialists. Most of the attorneys hold two doctorates and many of them from MIT and Harvard,” he explains, “In short, we have a very geeky bunch of attorneys and coworkers. I have occasionally worked directly with attorneys as a technical expert myself, it is very interesting to see software designs and procedures months and sometimes a year before the general public. These technical geeks are more often than not, interesting to talk with and are some of my favorite coworkers and friends.”

That’s not to say the job comes without challenges. “The number of hacking threats and skill encountered is directly proportional to the value of your holdings. Intellectual Property is one of the most valuable targets of hackers, after money, and therefore we have a proportionally higher security posture and budget to attempt to protect the assets of our firm,” says Kevin. “As recently as 2 weeks ago we were strategically poised enough — 90% mixture of extra two-factor security and 10% luck — to have repelled a global attack on Microsoft Exchange email servers by a Chinese group called ‘Hafnium’ that exploited a zero day vulnerability.” A ‘zero day vulnerability’ refers to vulnerabilities being exploited before public release, obtained by hacking into the developer’s software.

He explains how he deals with these kinds of stressful situations. “I think I have a ‘roll with the punches’ type attitude. I try to methodically break a puzzle into smaller pieces and solve them in a triage type system. I’m not sure if this is a very unique way to do things but I’ve seen the panic first, hair on fire, running around and yelling system fail consistently, I think my plan has worked better for me,” he chuckles.

He feels very lucky to have gotten all the opportunities that lead him down this path. He often reminisces about his army buddies, tells stories about his coworkers, and is thankful that he was exposed to databases and networking before college. He is not at all regretful of moving beyond the farm in Vermont, “Two of my brothers have been running the farm for years and I get all the farm fun I want when I visit.”