#fighting with matlab all day really uses up all my energy | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

intyalote · 3 years

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five things tag game

tagged by @i-am-just-a-kiddo ! I’ll tag @circumference-pie @not-saying-revolution-but (no pressure) and anyone else who feels like it!

five things you’ll find in my backpack:

notepad and pencil, in case I need to write/sketch some ideas unexpectedly - when I’m coding I like to draw the flow out first, and for math stuff I tend to think pretty geometrically, so it comes in handy

water bottle (though it usually contains tea or juice)

teabags, for use at places with hot water but no decent tea (like labs or lectures/conferences)

important documents - vaccine card, state ID (passport if I’m out of the country), etc

a little bag with useless travel mementos that just hangs out there because I don’t know what else to do with it and am too sentimental to get rid of it - has my IC card and uni ID from kyoto, various foreign currency coins, ticket stubs, and other such things.

five of my favorite things (at the moment):

one-hour cold brew mugicha. I developed a taste for it in japan, and it’s nice to not have to remember to leave it overnight like with normal cold brew tea.

sunsets over bodies of water - at uni I have the view over our lake, and at home I have the view over the river, and both are gorgeous

fun earrings, which are probably the only place where my fashion choices are at all interesting. the latest is a pair of bi flag rainbows.

the supermarket had discounts on some european imports so I got fancy cheese and dried fruit and jam, which I’m enjoying as rewards if I actually manage to make progress with my code

my (slightly illegal) rice cooker, which is a lifesaver now that I need to make meals without having an actual kitchen to work with.

five things on my to-do list:

work on the paper I’m writing based on some work I did last semester on mathematically modeling political power structures

formally reapply for my grading job (why I need to write a cover letter and everything when I’m already hired, I don’t know... I hate admin regulations)

clean up and update my linkedin profile

study for the GRE (at least I’m 90% sure I won’t have to take the physics subject GRE... the one good thing to come out of covid)

a super long list of little things I’d like to improve in the function I’ve been writing for the past week and a half (and one big thing I need to fix but have no idea what to do about) so it’s going to be fun trying to figure everything out before next week when I need to move on.

Sorry that this is so boring, my life right now is just trying to balance research, uni stuff, and grad school apps while remembering to eat and sleep, so I’m not doing anything interesting, but it was fun to answer anyway!

#about me #fighting with matlab all day really uses up all my energy #so i'm not on here/discord as much lately #and just the thought of trying to read makes my head hurt

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thephysicsgraduate · 5 years

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A summer REU featuring the worst imposter syndrome of my life.

So I got accepted for an REU at a really nice university doing computational micromagnetics research. Now I was particularly excited about this because all of my background so far has been in experimental work. I figured that seeing what computational research is like might help me decide which path I want to go down for grad school.

So I started one week ago and I have been tasked with spending the past week reviewing literature and learning the concepts applicable to the simulations I would be working with. I also had to introduce myself to matlab as I’ve never used any coding languages before.

I was all excited and everything was fine and dandy but I quickly tumbled into imposter syndrome hell.

Another undergraduate student that goes to the same university I am working at is working under the same professor as me doing similar work. He is generally pretty nice and agreeable and we had several conversations. I found out that he is only one year ahead of me and has already finished his physics degree and mathematics degree and is finishing up a fast tracked masters in mathematics next year. He also has experience in coding and computational work.

Why does this matter you might ask? Well it shouldn’t, but I fell into a slump for a few days where I inadvertently let it matter. I worried about things like “what will my advisor think when she realizes she picked the wrong student” or “maybe the only reason I’m here is because my professor from my home university helped me make this connection with my REU advisor.”

This. Is. Not. Okay.

The hardest part so far hasn’t been reading articles or learning to code, but rather allowing myself to start from where I’m at and learn to the best of my abilities.

I can’t let someone else’s experience should not invalidate my self worth.

I am here and that’s that so the best thing to do is be gracious to the individuals willing to help me. The other best thing to do is be gracious with myself.

I’m not gonna lie it has been really difficult to fight imposter syndrome. I can come up with a thousand and one reasons I don’t think I should be here and it’s a mental war zone.

Just imagine the incredible things I could be doing by applying that mental energy to more productive things!

This very long ranty message is coming to a close and I just want you to know that if you’re having similar feelings you aren’t alone. This is something so many people feel, but academia feels like an unwelcome environment for acknowledging them. Regardless I’m here telling you that these feelings happen and while it’s good to validate feelings, focus on the bigger picture and let them pass. You are gonna kick ass at whatever it is you’re doin’ I’m quite sure of it!

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djangogirls · 7 years

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My First Django Girls: And I Trained IDPs

Before now, I was always scared of codes. Seeing them alone gave me the goosebumps and left me confused. I would always be like,” Err, what’s happening here?”

I felt it was too difficult to learn and it was a guy’s thing. But the turning point came for me when I had to use Matlab Programming Tool for my project in school. I was struggling to follow a YouTube video but I got stuck at a point. So I met a guy who was a junior to help me out. I didn’t show him what I had done so far because I was not confident that I was on the right track.

He billed me N10,000 saying he had a similar set of codes that he would just adjust them to solve my problem. I didn’t have the money at the time but I had to struggle to pay because the submission date was close. To my amazement, the codes he gave me were my exact same codes but just two lines were different. Apparently, I had a bug but I was not patient enough to fix it. I had a mixed feeling of regret and joy. Regret that I paid for it and joy that I was very close to my result. That was when I told myself, “I must learn this thing!”

I started learning Python, took online courses, got myself in the right Python Community, and I got help from experienced programmers and mentors. While I was learning, I was always willing to share the little I knew with my friends, a couple of them that were already programmers, I realised it made me better. But one thing I told myself was that I was going to share this knowledge because I knew there were many people out there that still think coding is hard especially ladies. I volunteered to teach Python at any chance I got, to the extent that a friend called me one day and said, “Elohor, no de do free things” (She meant: “Stop teaching for free”). They were of the opinion that I could make a lot of money from it. But I thought to myself but I didn’t pay to learn, let this be my little “give back” to society. I believe that the best use of knowledge and influence is in the service of others community.

I saw the call for coaches for Django girls Lagos and I was like, ”Cool, another opportunity”. Even though I had never used Django before, I had gone past the stage of being scared of programming frameworks and terms and besides I had done a little project with Flask before so I felt it wouldn’t be so hard. I went through the tutorial and luckily enough, there was going to be a coaches’ meetup before the Installation Party so I thought I would get the chance to discuss my challenges.

On getting to the hotel's office on Birrel Avenue in Yaba which was hosting the meetup, I realised that I was like the only new face there. Apparently, a couple of them had been involved in Django girls. When the introduction started and I started hearing things like, “This is my fourth Django Girls”, “This is my eight Django girls” etc. I began to fret. I said to myself then that it was better to be in the midst of the experienced.

Somehow, the fact that this particular Django Girls workshop was particularly for IDPs didn’t sink in on me, until Simi mentioned that there was a particular coach, Jennifer that speaks Hausa fluently and that she came all the way from Nasarawa State in case we encounter issues when communicating with the girls. I was like, “Ahh, is this how it’s going to be? So the girls don’t understand English! How do I begin to communicate? What if Jennifer is too busy with other Coaches? Will I be able to go far with the tutorial? What if my mentees are not interested because I can’t communicate or because it’s looking too hard for them?” I had so many questions. I braced up, after all, I was not going to be alone, these friendly coaches would not leave me hanging.

Django Girls Day 1 came (Installation party), I was introduced to my mentees, Esther and Rhoda. “Wow, they spoke and understood English quite well”, first proposed challenge eliminated. I introduced myself and got them relaxed by asking personal questions. Apparently, they relocated from Bornu State about two years ago because of the fights there. Their village, Chibok was left completely empty. They had not resumed their schooling in Lagos however, I encouraged them to go back to school, briefed them on the importance of Computer Science, why they were learning Python, parts of a computer and a lot I felt they should know. Then we took off with the installation of the needed tools.

I made sure they did it themselves and I must say I was really impressed. It looked like they gave me the smartest girls in the hall. Rhoda was quite faster than Esther, she was the younger one though, so she was full of energy and zeal. As for me, the only issue I had was OS related, installing Virtual Environment on their system and slight internet issue when installing Django. I got help from fellow coaches to sort out the challenges. At the end, we completed our challenge for the day! The girls were so excited that they were operating the computers that they did not want to go home, little did they know that they were going home with the laptops the next day.

For the Day 2 which was the full workshop proper, I was assigned to two other. Esther and Rhoda were doing fine with their new coach. I introduced myself to Sophia and Moyin (See them here. Sophia was a kid from Bridge Academy while Moyin was a Secondary School student who stumbled on the application for the workshop on Google and decided to give it a try. Moyin was already learning web development on her own. She was familiar with HTML and CSS, she just needed guidance. Sophia, on the other hand, was just an excited kid that was eager to learn, she had been taught parts of a computer in school and she couldn’t wait to code.

I had to go over the installation again with them because they were absent during the Installation Party. For me, I was quite fast guiding them to install, there were no new unfamiliar issues for me. After that, it was more of work, eat, work, eat till the end of the day. I explained each section, gave them exercises to code and continued until the day was over. Even though we did not complete the tutorial, I was happy that I had instilled the interest to learn in them and they were willing to continue, it is just left for us to follow up with them and mentor them. Sophia was excited about her new laptop and Moyin was willing to get herself ready for personal study.

I must say I enjoyed every bit of the training and I had lots of fun. A big thumbs up to the Django Girls Lagos Team, Python Nigeria and all the Coaches, they did a wonderful job. I hope that for future workshops, the publicity would be more because there are a whole lot of people that would want to benefit from this initiative.

Django Girls Lagos Organisers’ Note:

We could not have had a successful and impactful workshop without the support of the following: AboCoders, Andela, CCHub Nigeria, GitHub, Google Nigeria, MTN Nigeria and Python Software Foundation and other individuals. Thanks to their support, we were able to give every IDP and student from Bridge Academy a laptop and get everything we needed for the workshop.

To our coaches, we would like to say a big thank you. Even if we had all the money but had no coaches, we would have made no impact. Thank you for the time you spent sharing knowledge with the participants! You made it happen!

Django Girls is a non-profit that teach programming to women all around the world. Want to help us? Support us!

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