At a really young age, I used to imagine for days what I would be like in another life if I was not deaf. Life as I know it would be so different. All my struggles would vanish as if they had never been experienced. I imagined living my life to the fullest… Now that I am wiser, I think differently about my deafness. I will never trade my own world of silence for anything because it matters to me.
When there is silence, there comes clarity. Just like how the shallow saltwater in Bolivia becomes still like a glass, suddenly it is almost as if you can touch the sky. Sometimes, it gets very noisy at Hackbright Academy. All I have to do is to turn off my hearing device. The loud distractions will cease and I focus better on coding. I consider it as my favorite perk being deaf.
Being deaf is one of the reasons why I want to code. Last year’s summer, I worked as an IT Business Analyst at Hewlett-Packard. I loved the people there. I would never replace the memories I made with my co-interns whom I called friends. (Charlyn, if you are reading this, just know I will never regret meeting you. Instead, it's the opposite. I will kick myself in the butt if I never met you.) I was happy with everything at HP, except my job. I was simply not happy with my job.
My job emphasized so much online verbal communication that it is amazing to me that I didn’t mess up my job. At HP, everything was online, including the conference calls. I would have multiple team conference calls, back to back. The only time I actually have an in-person conference meeting was when people flew from all over the world to meet at Houston, Texas for one week, then we all shuffled off to eat BBQ that they heard was famous in Houston. When I "digitally" enter in my conference calls, there was nothing I could do but listen really hard to catch everything. It made me realize how much I rely on lip-reading. Simply put, lip-reading does 60% of work while auditory processing nerves do 40% of work on putting together each sentence I try to understand. So, listening thru the online conference calls with no faces to look at is .... realllllly.... hard.
Every day I walked into work, I always felt the tip of a guillotine at my neck. Like a vulture, it was waiting for me to fall over a blind cliff. I had this fear that one little miscommunication will just ruin me. My thoughts would be like these. “Make sure you capture every single word you hear.” “Try to remember their voices, so you know who’s talking.” “Did my name get called yet? Oh God, I hope I don’t miss it.” Every day at work, I was at war with my own self. I was trying to be something I was just not and never will be. I couldn't make myself do the impossible - hear.
One day, my co-intern was stuck on his project. He was working with database and trying to hard-wire his codes to get access into the database. Having taken one programming course in C# and another in database management system, I knew enough to help him. I sat down and read his code carefully. I saw what lines of codes he was missing and where he should be putting them, so they don’t conflict with other codes. I took the time to fix his codes and without realizing it, I was so into it that I felt at ease. It was like being vortexed into another world where there was no other language than code. As soon as I got it to work, my co-intern gave me a high five. I was happy it worked. But what I didn't expect afterwards was that my feeling told me otherwise. I was sad it ended too soon. I wanted to do more. I was truly myself when I code. That is when I realized I want to code. At least, be more technical-focused.
After discovering that software engineering was right for me, a burning desire to learn how to code grew in me. It just kept growing as I was digging deeper into Ruby on Codecademy. Every day, I made the time to spend at least one to two hours on Codecademy. As I learned to code, I realized that I needed to know a lot to get up to par if I want to have a career in software engineering. Then, I discovered programming bootcamp as an alternative to getting a degree in computer science if you don’t have the money or time to get that four-year degree. When I first learned of Hackbright Academy, I was amazed that it was an all women’s academy. I knew right away that Hackbright was it. I balked at the 5% low acceptance rate, but I got over it quickly and applied with my whole heart in it because I wanted a career I am passionate about-coding. Even if I never made it into Hackbright, I would still pursue it anyways because I never wanted anything so badly. Then one morning after I woke up, an email came. It was my letter of acceptance into Hackbright Academy. My breath froze, then I jumped and wept so hard in disbelief.
So, here I am at Hackbright Academy. Almost two months have gone and passed by. I feel like I have… learned… so… much… I just can’t believe I know this enormous much. And I can’t believe either how I knew so little before Hackbright. The education I am getting at Hackbright is totally worth the emotional stresses, tears, headaches, and the ups and downs I have had at Hackbright.
On top of that, Christian and all the amazing instructors and staffs at Hackbright Academy are amazing! They really hurdled over my challenges with me because they care… Like really, really care… that I am learning everything I need to know how to program, despite being deaf.
I want to point out that there is a difference between how I communicate and how I learn. When having a usual conversation in quiet environment with someone one-on-one, I can usually understand what the other person is saying and carry a conversation back and forth. For some reasons, how I learn new code or concept doesn't work the same way. I like to think that I have a deaf brain. It simply doesn’t process in anything that it hears. Instead, it only processes in what it sees. I learn better when instructors not only tell, but also show how it works. Sometimes tell is necessary and I will look for resources online and read everything to help me get a solid understanding. The instructors here really get that and try to do this for me, which I greatly appreciate them for doing this.
Thanks to Hackbright, I am starting to feel confident.
As a deaf software engineer, there is no limit to what I can do.
<3 Kiki
When there is silence, there comes clarity. Just like how the shallow saltwater in Bolivia becomes still like a glass, suddenly it is almost as if you can touch the sky. Sometimes, it gets very noisy at Hackbright Academy. All I have to do is to turn off my hearing device. The loud distractions will cease and I focus better on coding. I consider it as my favorite perk being deaf.
Being deaf is one of the reasons why I want to code. Last year’s summer, I worked as an IT Business Analyst at Hewlett-Packard. I loved the people there. I would never replace the memories I made with my co-interns whom I called friends. (Charlyn, if you are reading this, just know I will never regret meeting you. Instead, it's the opposite. I will kick myself in the butt if I never met you.) I was happy with everything at HP, except my job. I was simply not happy with my job.
My job emphasized so much online verbal communication that it is amazing to me that I didn’t mess up my job. At HP, everything was online, including the conference calls. I would have multiple team conference calls, back to back. The only time I actually have an in-person conference meeting was when people flew from all over the world to meet at Houston, Texas for one week, then we all shuffled off to eat BBQ that they heard was famous in Houston. When I "digitally" enter in my conference calls, there was nothing I could do but listen really hard to catch everything. It made me realize how much I rely on lip-reading. Simply put, lip-reading does 60% of work while auditory processing nerves do 40% of work on putting together each sentence I try to understand. So, listening thru the online conference calls with no faces to look at is .... realllllly.... hard.
Every day I walked into work, I always felt the tip of a guillotine at my neck. Like a vulture, it was waiting for me to fall over a blind cliff. I had this fear that one little miscommunication will just ruin me. My thoughts would be like these. “Make sure you capture every single word you hear.” “Try to remember their voices, so you know who’s talking.” “Did my name get called yet? Oh God, I hope I don’t miss it.” Every day at work, I was at war with my own self. I was trying to be something I was just not and never will be. I couldn't make myself do the impossible - hear.
One day, my co-intern was stuck on his project. He was working with database and trying to hard-wire his codes to get access into the database. Having taken one programming course in C# and another in database management system, I knew enough to help him. I sat down and read his code carefully. I saw what lines of codes he was missing and where he should be putting them, so they don’t conflict with other codes. I took the time to fix his codes and without realizing it, I was so into it that I felt at ease. It was like being vortexed into another world where there was no other language than code. As soon as I got it to work, my co-intern gave me a high five. I was happy it worked. But what I didn't expect afterwards was that my feeling told me otherwise. I was sad it ended too soon. I wanted to do more. I was truly myself when I code. That is when I realized I want to code. At least, be more technical-focused.
After discovering that software engineering was right for me, a burning desire to learn how to code grew in me. It just kept growing as I was digging deeper into Ruby on Codecademy. Every day, I made the time to spend at least one to two hours on Codecademy. As I learned to code, I realized that I needed to know a lot to get up to par if I want to have a career in software engineering. Then, I discovered programming bootcamp as an alternative to getting a degree in computer science if you don’t have the money or time to get that four-year degree. When I first learned of Hackbright Academy, I was amazed that it was an all women’s academy. I knew right away that Hackbright was it. I balked at the 5% low acceptance rate, but I got over it quickly and applied with my whole heart in it because I wanted a career I am passionate about-coding. Even if I never made it into Hackbright, I would still pursue it anyways because I never wanted anything so badly. Then one morning after I woke up, an email came. It was my letter of acceptance into Hackbright Academy. My breath froze, then I jumped and wept so hard in disbelief.
So, here I am at Hackbright Academy. Almost two months have gone and passed by. I feel like I have… learned… so… much… I just can’t believe I know this enormous much. And I can’t believe either how I knew so little before Hackbright. The education I am getting at Hackbright is totally worth the emotional stresses, tears, headaches, and the ups and downs I have had at Hackbright.
On top of that, Christian and all the amazing instructors and staffs at Hackbright Academy are amazing! They really hurdled over my challenges with me because they care… Like really, really care… that I am learning everything I need to know how to program, despite being deaf.
I want to point out that there is a difference between how I communicate and how I learn. When having a usual conversation in quiet environment with someone one-on-one, I can usually understand what the other person is saying and carry a conversation back and forth. For some reasons, how I learn new code or concept doesn't work the same way. I like to think that I have a deaf brain. It simply doesn’t process in anything that it hears. Instead, it only processes in what it sees. I learn better when instructors not only tell, but also show how it works. Sometimes tell is necessary and I will look for resources online and read everything to help me get a solid understanding. The instructors here really get that and try to do this for me, which I greatly appreciate them for doing this.
Thanks to Hackbright, I am starting to feel confident.
As a deaf software engineer, there is no limit to what I can do.
<3 Kiki