___________Why are you interested in programming? What have you done to expose yourself to programming so far?_________________

For the summer of 2017, I applied to about 20 tech internships but did not get many responses. I think that despite my background in IT, not having experience in programming has prevented me from getting the kind of jobs that I have dreamt about. This was further reinforced when my Python teacher (a class I took Spring of 2017) told us that System Administrators were now being replaced by junior programmers. I greatly enjoyed that class and purposely chose my track (System Administration) because it was the only one that offered anything close to coding (Python). The majority of my classmates switched to Security for their track and as much as I wanted to, the courses offered were not as challenging i.e. no coding/scripting classes required. Prior to taking Python, I had never seen it but after the class had ended I was able to write about 15 scripts, a few of which I have posted on my GitHub for you to compile.

An example of an internship that I believe that I did not get due to my lack of programming skills was working for Tempered Networks. I don’t blame you if you haven’t heard of this company because it was started in 2012 but you might recognize the CEO’s previous startup, F5 Networks. I managed to get an interview for this internship and was impressed with what the company was doing to revolutionize the internet.

The position was for help desk so I was surprised when I learned that my potential co-worker, who was interviewing me, had an Engineering degree. Up until this point, I did not realize how competitive the job market was, that this entire time that I was applying for “entry level support jobs” I was competing against people with Engineering degrees. She made it clear that she wasn’t impressed with my background. Specifically, my lack of certifications (which people with IT degrees often need) so they went with someone else.

I have often felt as though I am looked down upon by some of the Engineers and Computer Science majors that I work with such as the girl at Tempered. I want to prove to myself and to them that I am just as smart and capable as they are. I have a passion for technology and a proven track record to back it up.


__________________If you are accepted into our program, where do you see your career in 5 years?______________________________

My last two jobs/internships have been in quality software testing and for the most part I like it. What would make the job better, would be if I could start writing code to automate my test cases. Currently, all of the testing that I do is manual and can be unnecessarily tedious. I can see myself continuing to be a software tester with the advanced ability to build tools to automate test plans, which would greatly add value to any team that I work in.

I would also be interested in being an antivirus researcher or something along those lines. Thanks to Ada, I would understand how to interpret code and I could look for possible vulnerabilities in various products both physical and non. Then I would be able to document the bug and work to find a patch before a virus could cause harm. I wrote a paper on the Internet of Things that talks about how anything with an IP address is vulnerable to attack, since many products are not hardened before going out to the public.

Being a programmer would also allow me to be part of various side projects. If Ada were to choose me, I would be a helpful promoter of the program’s success because I would go to various conventions like DEFCON, Black Hat and Girl Geek Dinners where I would talk about my research in various areas related to security. I strongly believe that my success would mean Ada’s success. I went to DEFCON 20, and lots of the topics were too code heavy for me to understand but it would be my goal to make coding more approachable.


___________After reading Ada's Vision, Mission and Inclusivity Statement, how will you contribute to Ada's vision for an inclusive and diverse community?_________________

As a Mexican female, I think I have executed Ada’s mission statement of creating a diverse work culture in tech. I have been the only female in not only my college classes but also in two teams at work. In addition, since there are few Mexican people in technology I have learned how to make friends with people of other backgrounds, which has made me very open minded. I also believe that there should be socioeconomic diversity. If accepted into the program, I would work to improve the technology curriculum at Puget Sound Skills Center (PSSC) which is where I took computer networking during High School. I am currently on the board of advisors for the program but I do not know how to help effectively but I think learning how to program would be a huge step.

This is because when I went to PSSC, the class was about computer networking but has since changed to incorporate more programming but sadly, the curriculum is not strong. Partly due to the fact that they can’t afford a skilled programmer to teach. If I learned how to code, I could be a much more helpful advisor as I would have a better understanding of programming best practices. I see myself as being an inspirational mentor, teacher’s assistant, and tutor for many years to come. I would be very happy to give back to my community in this way because I have been in those kid’s shoes (having the desire to learn technology but not having good guidance or role models). I also believe that my presence there could help attract more girls, by making it a more welcoming environment.


_____________Tell us about a time you made a mistake that you learned a lot from. If you encountered the situation again, what would you do differently?______________


During my freshman year of college I was filling in for a teacher’s assistant. My job was to monitor the server rack for any anomalies. As luck, would have it one of the hard drives started to make some strange noises and was blinking erratically. I had vaguely recalled the assistant swapping out drives previously so I figured that I could do the same. The moment I removed the bad hard drive, all of the other drives started to blink red and beep loudly, it became obvious that I had made the situation worse. I panicked and tried for the next 2 hours to fix the issue until I finally called the assistant. Upon arriving, he was noticeably upset. He said, that if I had called sooner, he would have been able to get the proper disaster recovery procedures into place. Unfortunately, I had waited too long and all of the students’ and teachers’ work for that quarter had been lost. The biggest lesson that I learned from that was: don’t be the hero. I wanted so badly to fix the problem and not bother anyone but I was in over my head. I am much better now at asking for help when I come across a problem that I need assistance with because of that day.