Thanks to viral posts like this, it’s genuinely getting harder to detect whether something was written by an AI or a human.

One of the most important and elusive questions of this human moment: how do you take advantage of AI without losing authenticity?

And how do you even answer that if you can’t identify what is actually authentic?

Sure, you can remove your em-dashes. (I won’t.)

Now I know what you are thinking.

Carly… you are full of sh*t.

Your writing is full of em-dashes. How am I supposed to take you seriously when your work is peppered with the most obvious “AI wrote this” tell there is?

To that, I offer this — photos of my handwritten draft of this post. Full of em-dashes. On my Kindle Scribe.

I’ve always used the em-dash — long before AI. I am also stubborn (*my mom blames it on my red hair.) In my writing, it’s not an AI tell. It’s just me.

I’d argue there are only two real tells left.

1. Inhuman cadence

2. Imperfection

The inhuman cadence.

The biggest AI tell isn’t the syntax anymore. It’s cadence.

The posting frequency gives it away.

Figuring out what to write an essay about every week is kind of daunting. None of my in-progress drafts felt ready to publish this week. And now it’s Thursday. Sh*t.

Writing an essay is easily a 10–15 hour commitment for me. People who publish daily, long-form posts with perfectly structured hooks and clean conclusions don’t feel believable to me. No matter how closely the model mimics your voice, the cadence can still feel off.

It’s too clean. Too consistent. Too… optimized.

Of course, it would be nice to use AI to reduce the labor of writing these weekly essays. But so far, I’ve found myself doubling down on writing the way I always have. Because I don’t want to sacrifice my authentic voice.1

So maybe… In a time when human authenticity is becoming increasingly scarce and difficult to identify, my authentic voice — my imperfections — might just be the most valuable and interesting content I have to offer.

Signaling authenticity with imperfections.

My hot take of the week: Imperfections are the new signal.

They’re the quiet indicators screaming to your readers: I wrote this. This is mine. I’m human. I put effort into this. You’re reading something shaped by the messy idiosyncrasies of my brain.

That, my friends, is the insight of the week.

The less perfect your writing is, the less likely people will dismiss it for AI.

Too perfect = AI wrote it.
Too perfect = lack of authenticity.

Lmk what you think.

Til next week,

Carly

“a rare combination occurring every 60 years that symbolizes intense energy, rapid transformation, independence, and bold action…. It represents a high-paced, competitive, and passionate year, encouraging innovation and risk-taking, but requiring management to avoid burnout, impulsivity, or volatility.

If you reflect on the events of the past 4 weeks, The Year of The Horse description feels humorously “on the nose”, whether you believe in the Chinese Lunar Zodiac or not.

The Power of AI is exploding — logarithmically — before our eyes.

The balance of power is in choppy seas; a yellow rubber duck in a bath tub that someone is aggressively splashing.

A few weeks ago, a CEO — little known outside the tech industry — told the US government no.1 Open AI bought a formerly-burnt-out-CEO’s AI project he vibe-coded on a 3 month sabbatical for millions of dollars.2 “Anyone can code” is more true than it ever was in 2015 when I semi-irrationally convinced myself I could do it. 3

In part thanks to “The Claw”, your mobile information firehose4 just cranked up 100x in speed and pressure. Half the content we’re consuming isn’t even written by real humans.5 It’s literally an inhuman amount of information. 6

Human bodies have never had to process this rate of information before. Our mere human hardware wasn’t built for this kind of processing.

So what do you do? First, you panic. You feel behind. Useless. Not good enough. And that’s what hooks you back into the loop. You try harder. Consume more. Read more. Run Faster. “Feeling behind and overwhelmed” is a theme that has come up in almost every in-person interaction I’ve had this month.

Even when you disengage, the overstimulation lingers; your nervous system keeps buzzing like an overheated computer you just tried to shut off.

We’re 1 month into Year Horse - intense energy, rapid transformation… check and check. We have 11 more months of this… :sweat_smile:

On that note — let me tell you a little story about horses.

When I first embarked on my Creative Sabbatical — I felt so free. I felt like a wild stallion, finally released from confinement, galloping, flying full speed into a cinematic sunset.

When I wrote that in my journal, I had no idea there was a “horse year” life theme on the horizon. A few months into my Creative Sabbatical, I was invited to an Equine Meditation Retreat in Lucas Valley7. I almost didn’t go, but I’m glad I did. It was at that retreat that I first learned about “Horse Time.”

What is “Horse Time”?

Horse Time is a horsemanship concept referring to operating on the horse’s schedule rather than the humans’.

Horse Time emphasizes patience, presence, and moving at a slower, non-judgmental pace. It involves letting go of rigid agendas to focus on relationship building, safety and mutual understanding.

Back in June 2025, I started doing The Artist’s Way 8 as part of my Creative Sabbatical9. At the end of last week, I was feeling the buzz.10 I needed a computer break. Big time. What’s the opposite of computers? Nature. So I decided to visit The Horse Hill Preserve in Mill Valley for my weekly Artist’s Date with myself. I’d never been there before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect really. I typed “Horse Hill Preserve” into Google Maps. A few minutes later, I found myself in a little parking lot at the base of a big green hill, adjacent to a pen of horses and a trailhead.

Horse Hill is exactly what it sounds like — a hill with horses. It’s a quiet, little known trail in Mill Valley just off the Tiburon exit of the 101, tucked behind a quaint cul-de-sac of charming Northern California bungalows. The horses live a nice life. Various owners and volunteers come to care for them daily — they get food, water, and grooming in the pen at the base of the hill. Otherwise, they are free to roam the entire hill side at their leisure. And the cool part is you can just go hiking and hang out with them there (from a safe distance).

So that’s what I did. I got out of my car. And wandered up the trailhead to the top of the hill.

And I sat down.
By myself.
With the horses.
And I took this photo:

A quiet sanctuary where horse time begets the San Francisco skyline. A perfect picture of a paradoxical antidote to modern times.

We sat there for a while together not moving. Horses are really good at not moving. They can not move for a long time. The quiet of the horses competes with wind and the roar of traffic on the 101. I thought a lot about “Horse Time”.

A quick review of the key “horse time” concepts reads like a manual for surviving these human times.

• Patience: allowing tasks to take as long as necessary without forcing them, which prevents emotional shutdown in horses. (*and humans).

• Presence: being fully present in the moment rather than focused on a strict, time-crunched schedule. (*or arbitrary product deadlines)

• Therapeutic Value: many people use this concept to describe calming, non-riding, “hands-on” time at the barn to reduce stress. (*or digital detoxes)

• Antidote to Perfectionism: it encourages focusing on authentic connection rather than perfect performance. (*omg high performing over achievers, can you even imagine?!?)

Full Circle — It’s The Year of The Horse.

It’s the year of the Horse. 2026. The Horse represents movement, courage, intuition, and breakthroughs. The Fire Horse — a wild, muscular stallion standing before the horizon with untamed momentum, possibility and power — a perfect mirror for this transformative chapter in human history.

But remember the key — If you move too fast, you’ll miss it.

To see the whole picture, you have to look a little closer. And move a little slower. With patience. Presence. Non-judgment. Toward human relationships. Safety. Mutual understanding.

Life is going to quickly sweep you away from this post. That’s okay. But do me one favor? For yourself. A gift from you to you. When you feel the buzz. Remember:

Make some time to move on horse time.

Where did we leave off?

Covered in heavy, immovable muck. Sitting quietly like a long-burnt wick, just after the wind stole your last ember.

I’m with you now — and I’m lighter. This trail of steps I’ve followed, like breadcrumbs through the fog, is shedding the muck. Reigniting my spirit. Giving me new life.

Here’s the map.

I made it retracing my own journey. It may not be your map — but hey, you gotta start somewhere. What’s there to lose?

I am your techgirl guide. Follow my steps and you’ll find your way back to your light.

Why listen to me?

Baby, I got my fire back. A year and a half out from the lonely concrete bottom — still shedding, but I can see the light. That’s enough.

And I’m moving forward on my own terms.

Step 1: Surrender

Let yourself do nothing. (It won’t last long — you have time.)

Surrender to stillness. Be quiet. That “responsible” thing nagging your brain — don’t do it. Anything that feels like force — don’t do it. If you are actually burnt out, this part will be easier than expected.

It’s not about melting into a permanent couch potato or recklessly going off the grid. It’s a pause. A breath. Temporary, but slightly uncomfortably longer than you’d like. Allow yourself to be with your discomfort. An afternoon? A week? You can afford to take a time out. Your life depends on it right now.

At this point, when you look in the mirror, you will still look like yourself — but you won’t feel like yourself. It’s too early to see the muck. It can only be felt. Surrender to that.

Step 2: Ask Yourself. Be Honest.

What would you do if you didn’t have to do it?

I struggled to answer this question. It had been so long — so many years of forcing myself to do what I should do, usually due to some external force — that I genuinely had no idea what I wanted anymore. Maybe I started out wanting something about the thing that burned me out, but at some point it lost its joy and I forged on anyway.

So really — ask yourself: what would you do if you didn’t have to do it?

If the first image that comes to mind is you in a circus tent, don’t panic. I’m not here to tell you to throw everything away and pursue your surprisingly suppressed circus career calling. Trust the process. The first image is just a breadcrumb.

What keeps coming up? Most likely it will look very different from whatever burned you out. That’s good. Maybe it’s something you used to love. Something that made you feel free.

Reacquaint yourself with younger you. It’s probably been a while. A lot has changed. But in this moment, she’s probably your best friend — showing up unannounced, unexpectedly, with a gift: your first clue.

Step 3: Notice

You’ll know you’ve allowed yourself to pick up the first crumb when the first synchronicity inexplicably enters your life. An old friend calls you out of the blue. You overhear your neighbor talking about the circus class she just signed up for — from here on, the circus stands in for whatever you imagined in Step 2.

Notice your surprise. Notice your resistance. Notice your fear. Maybe you are looking at an old scar. A dream deferred. Something you let go of to “grow up,” make money, be “responsible.” Maybe it feels a little dangerous to entertain.

You still can’t see it — but you can feel it. That’s exactly how you know you are moving toward the light.

Step 4: Say Yes

You’re still safe. Treat this as an experiment. The circus school in the city has a drop-in trapeze class for beginners tomorrow. One class. Just to see. Go.

“Don’t give in to your fears,” said the alchemist, in a strangely gentle voice. “If you do, you won’t be able to talk to your heart.”

— Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

Fear is exactly what’s standing between you and the next breadcrumb. Not logic. Not timing. Fear. And the only way through it is a single small yes — just this one thing, just for you, just to see.

Step 5: Don’t Tell Anyone. (This is critical.)

Sign up for the trapeze class and go. Don’t post it on social media. Don’t announce it to your friends and family.

It’s not about keeping secrets. It’s about doing something just for you. Because you want to do it.

And the only way to be sure it’s for you — and not some external validation (I’m looking at you, high-achieving perfectionist types) — is to let it be for you and only you. Shh. For now.

The only way to really remember what feels right to your soul is to let it be yours alone first. To protect it from other people’s opinions before it’s strong enough to survive them.

Step 6: Go Off the Radar. Rebuild Quietly.

This one is hard. If you work in tech, you are likely an achieving type. Tech attracts bright minds, star students. We curate our social circles — intentionally or not — with peers of similar résumés, or careers we aspire toward. If you started your career at FAANG or a hot hypergrowth startup, your network is status and achievement-oriented by default.

To take a career break can seem like career suicide. Even if it’s not, you will notice people you considered friends treat you like you’ve tattooed a red flag on your face. But they’ll pretend not to notice. You get to be on the receiving end of thinly veiled micro-judgments. It’s so fun. (It’s not.) And so enlightening.

It’s not personal. It’s just how most people in this industry are programmed. And if they are still running strong, they won’t get it. That’s okay. It doesn’t make them bad people. And it doesn’t mean you deserve the judgment.

Not gonna lie — the start of Step 6 kind of sucks. The flood of recruiter emails slows to a trickle. Networking events are a sea of new people quickly glossing over you upon hearing your answer to “what do you do?”

Even the humble will feel their egos unexpectedly bruised. But this is where the portal begins to open. Give yourself permission to feel it — and then let it go.

Let them.

— Mel Robbins

You have just shed your first layer of muck.

You are lighter now.

Free from others’ judgment. The only limit from here is you.

You are free.

The world is your oyster. And so is your story.

The synchronicities start to accelerate the moment you decide to keep following the breadcrumb trail when no one is looking. The signal beckoning you gets clearer the more you let yourself trust it.

Part 4 is coming. But don't wait for me — you already know the next step.

Coming up in Part 4:

The numbers. The details I’ve kept close. My actual story — how I got to the concrete bottom, and what it looked like to climb out.

1

This post is about what burnout in the tech industry actually feels like in your body. In your life. On a Tuesday morning.

How banal, I often thought to myself — there I stood, knee-deep in a pool of wax, my embers barely visible. I stubbornly persisted on, in denial that my energy was running on empty reserves.

There is shame in it. A shame you have to bury for a while before it’s even touchable.

Covered in Muck

If you’re still reading this, perhaps you can relate. Perhaps you woke up this morning and suddenly noticed that you are covered in muck — several layers thick. You were moving too fast to see it before. Now it’s too thick to ignore. And it’s weighing you down. It’s become difficult to move. Difficult to think.

Texts go unanswered. You have just enough energy to send that one email — but that’s all the will your daily rations allow on your current reserves. Dreaming is an escape. Getting out of bed is just going through the motions.

You’ve been forcing yourself through the routines your responsibilities demand for so long that you’ve become so disconnected from yourself, you don’t know what you’d even want to do with your life if you had to choose.

But the room is so dark now, you don’t have a choice but to do something different. You can’t go on this way. Something has to change.

How did you get to this point? The details don’t matter right now. It’s too early. But the metaphor is enough.

Right now, you are covered in so much muck that you are essentially the human equivalent of one of those hard, hollow, chocolate Easter bunnies that don’t taste very good — and it’s muck, not chocolate. Worse.

When you look in the mirror, it still looks like you. You don’t see the muck when you’ve hit rock bottom. You see what looks like you, but doesn’t feel like you. You feel sluggish, stiff. It takes all your effort to move a muscle. (Who knew sitting with computers could cause literal physical exhaustion?)

It’s no wonder you’re feeling this way though. You’ve been covered in several layers of muck for a few years now — you felt heavier, more labored over time, but you could still move.

Rewind your life. Quick. Stop.

You remember the time when you were muck free. Younger. Earnest. Excited. Optimistic. Energetically pursuing the thing that gradually burns you out over time.

Take a deep breath and ready your thumb. The next part is a classic flip book animation of your life. Slowly, flip the pages until you get to the first sling of muck. Look at yourself — it was hardly noticeable. Keep going. A little faster. Faster through the years. The muck builds gradually over time.

And you, you are the hero. For so long this fast-forwarded stop-motion review of your life has been a story of Human Triumph. Brave perseverance. Even as the muck gets thicker, you push through. You get stronger. So strong you don’t notice the muck is heavier. And then there is the climactic blow. It’s more of a spiritual blow. The muck layers consistently. For some reason, you can’t bounce back as easily.

Now, it’s obvious why. Looking back on the chapters, the animated flip book makes clear what is impossible to notice in real time: that you were the slow-boiling frog — but instead of boiling water, this metaphor covers you in muck.

Helplessness. Despair. Anger. Shame. They are buried too — baked into the hardened surface currently restricting your spirit.

Numbness. Exhaustion. Emptiness.

That’s all that’s left to feel.

I know that feeling. And if you’re reading this now and can relate — maybe you are feeling the cold concrete rock bottom with your bare hands today — congratulations.

Your new chapter starts today.

“Stay gold, Ponyboy.”

— The Outsiders

Coming up in Part 3: Everyone gets out of the hole a little differently. I’ve been where you are. I’m your techgirl guide — and I’m going to show you the map.1

I didn’t know if I’d get a job.
I didn’t know if I belonged.
I just knew that writing was how I navigated uncertainty.

Last week I relaunched it.
Three paid subscribers signed up.
I cried.

Thank you. Truly.

Burnout is one of those mundanely elusive topics.

We’ve all read the think pieces.
We’ve sat through the mandatory HR modules.
We’ve seen the pastel LinkedIn graphics about “rest.”

And yet — despite how common it is in tech — the experience is lonely.

There’s shame in admitting you’re burning out.
Because burnout still feels like a personal weakness.
Even when the conditions are systemic.

Long hours don’t cause burnout.

Helplessness does.

We built our identities in an industry that promised meritocracy.
But macro trends — interest rates, cost cutting, AI acceleration — have quietly strained the integrity of that promise.

If you weren’t laid off, you were asked to do more with less.
If you weren’t asked to do more with less, you were watching people disappear.

It’s not personal.
But it feels personal.

Careers involve luck.
That used to feel taboo to say out loud in tech utopia.

Now it’s undeniable.

Thousands of coders — often the best ones — are quietly mourning.

Not just layoffs.
Not just comp compression.
But the rapid devaluation of a skill they conflated with their self-worth.

We are entering an era of “abundance”.

Every time I hear that sentence, my head tingles with cognitive dissonance.

An abundance of what?

Layoffs?
AI agents?
Uncertainty?

Is it a wave coming toward us?
Or a mirage?

What I’ve noticed lately is that the loudest dismissals of AI often carry something quieter underneath them.

Not arrogance.

Grief.

The grief of watching a beloved craft shift in real time.
The grief of realizing mastery may no longer guarantee leverage.
The grief of feeling the ground move after you built your identity on it.

Grief is disorienting.

And disorientation, when it lasts long enough, starts to feel like betrayal.

Nobody set out to betray you.

But something did shift.

If the ground has felt unstable beneath you, you’re not the only one.

What you’re feeling isn’t personal failure.
It’s structural change.

And it deserves a more honest conversation.

Next Post: Covered In Muck.
What burnout actually feels like when it's not aesthetic.

If you’re new — welcome.

It’s been ten years.

Here’s the short version:

I graduated from Hackbright Academy in September 2015. I joined Slack the next month.

I stayed for eight years. I shipped code, moved teams, grew up, burned out —and eventually left. I tried the startup thing. Then I stopped trying the startup thing. And then I took what I jokingly called a “creative sabbatical” — which turned out to be the most honest description of the most important year of my life.

Here’s the longer version. Or at least the beginning of it.

When I started this blog, I was a 25-year-old theater kid who had decided, somewhat recklessly, to teach herself how to code. The tagline was “journey of a girl who codes,” and I meant it literally. I was documenting the experiment in real time because I didn’t know if it would work. I didn’t know if I’d get a job. I didn’t know if I belonged.

I wrote because writing was how I navigated uncertainty.

And in some ways, it worked spectacularly.

I got hired at Slack before most people had heard of Slack. I built a career in software engineering from scratch. I went from not knowing what a for-loop was to becoming an engineer at one of the most culturally significant tech companies of the last decade.

That part of the story is real. And I’m proud of it.

But narratives flatten.

The “girl who codes” arc was inspiring because it was simple: outsider learns to code, gets dream job, changes her life.

That’s true.

It’s also incomplete.

The years that followed were more complicated than any blog post could hold. There were things I saw inside the tech industry that I’m still processing. There were costs to “making it” that no one warns you about. There were years when I was so deep inside the machinery of a company that I couldn’t see the shape of the thing I was inside.

I can see it now.

I left Slack in May 2024.

The specifics aren’t the point — at least not today.

What matters is that leaving created space.

Space to think.

Space to feel.

Space to reconnect with the parts of myself I’d packed away when I pivoted from the arts to engineering.

Before I was an engineer, I studied Radio/Television/Film, Theater, and Political Science at Northwestern. At the time, it felt excessive. Looking back, those disciplines were circling the same question:

How do stories shape power?

And how does power shape stories?

I just didn’t have the life experience to answer it yet.

Now I do.

Over the last year and a half, I’ve had long, searching conversations with women across the tech industry — founders, investors, executives, operators.

We’ve talked about power.

About invisible rules.

About real costs.

About what happens behind closed doors when a woman becomes inconvenient.

Those conversations have changed me.

They’ve made me angrier. They’ve made me clearer. They’ve pointed me toward a creative project I’m not ready to share in full — but that I’m building with everything I have.

I changed the tagline of this blog.

It used to be “journey of a girl who codes.”

Now it’s “journey of a girl who forges her own path.”

The coding was never really the point.

The point was that I was willing to start over when the old path stopped making sense.

I did it at 25 when I left the arts for tech.

I’m doing it again at 35 — this time with a decade of insider knowledge, a network of extraordinary women, and a much sharper understanding of what’s at stake.

I’m going to be writing here more regularly.

About tech — from the perspective of someone who’s been inside it and stepped back far enough to see its shape.

About creativity — and what happens when you finally give yourself permission to pursue the thing you’ve been postponing.

About reinvention — the real kind, without a playbook.

About building in an era where AI is reshaping everything — and what that means for the people living inside the systems we create.

I don’t have all the answers.

But I know how to write my way through uncertainty.

And I know there are people — especially women navigating tech, leaving it, or circling back to something they set aside — who might want to come along.

So.

I’m Carly.

I have red hair.

I’ve been gone for a while.

And I’m building something that matters.

More soon.

Reflections on Hackbright, Week 1. 

As I reflect on the first week of Hackbright, I’ve been thinking a lot about how to best approach new experiences. The first week is important. Intense experiences can either crush you or make you stronger. You can set yourself up for success by intentionally developing a routine in these first few days. The first week is a time to experiment with challenging your comfort zone, staying organized, and cultivating habits of self-care.

GETTING OUT OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE 

For many people, especially engineering inclined introverts, showing up to the first day of a coding bootcamp may feel like stepping outside naked. A cohort of new people, a new city, new challenging ideas… it may seem like you are dangling in a pit of scary, hungry, human-eating unfamiliarity.

If this sounds like it could be you, let me offer some advice!

If you want to get the most out of your first week, try developing checklists for yourself to challenge your sense of adventure, organization, and self-care. Each checklist will give you concrete goals to both motivate you, and track your progress. Most of these ideas are not new or groundbreaking. However, when you go into a new experience, it helps to remind yourself of the basics. The lists act like stepping stones you carefully lay down to both stabilize and cultivate your sense of adventure, possibility, and sanity as you start this new experience.

EXAMPLE ADVENTURE CHECKLIST 

1. Meet Three People Every Day

2. Sit in the Front Row

3. Ask Questions

• Meet Three People A Day

  • Challenge yourself to talk to at least 3 new people a day

    • Remember their names, listen to their stories, and write a note of what you remember after your conversation.

  • Go to the optional Social Events!

    • Not only will you push yourself, you will be fully participating and giving yourself another opportunity to talk to someone new. You never know who you’ll meet and what you’ll learn.

  • Personal Reflection: This is something I struggled with my first week. At first I found myself gravitating to the first people I met. However, by reminding myself to challenge my comfort zone, I met several of the most interesting people I’ve encountered in a while. There are still a lot of people in my cohort I haven’t talked to, so this is one I will try to consistently push myself to do.

• Sit in the Front Row of Lecture

  • Free yourself from distraction, force yourself to participate.

  • If not every day, try it at least once a week.

  • Personal Reflection: I’ve made a point of trying to sit in the front row of every lecture. Sitting up front focuses your attention on what is presented by the lecturer. You are paying for this education! Set yourself up for success. Especially if you are easily distracted (like me). Eliminate distractions. Help yourself stay fully present. But don’t steal my seat.

• Ask Questions

  • Engage in your learning. If you don’t understand something, ask! Most likely someone has the same question and is too afraid to ask.

  • TIP: When sitting in the front row, asking questions feels less scary.

  • Personal Reflection: You are trying to learn computer science. The first week is going to cover the basics. Don’t guess. If you don’t fully comprehend the fundamentals, you are going to make mistakes and create bugs you don’t understand. While bug creation is inevitable for us newbs, be kind to your future self (thanks Joel and Cynthia). I never worry about whether someone is going to think my question is stupid. If I don’t get it now, I am going to suck later. However, use your judgement. If it seems like a question that won’t illuminate the concept for your peers, or could cause a long tangent, maybe ask after class? But don’t be afraid to Ask Questions! They can be a gift to your new peers and yourself.

EXAMPLE ORGANIZATION CHECKLIST

1. Organize Your Notebook

2. Create A Routine

• Organize Your Note Book (Hackbright specific… no computers in lecture)

• If available, read the lecture slides the night before. Give yourself an idea of what is coming. If possible, print the lecture slides ahead of time and take notes on them.

• Write legibly: if you don’t, make sure that you go back and rewrite your notes so they are actually useful to your future self. Help yourself want to review your material.

•  Use a BINDER!

  • I have to say.. I am pretty proud of my Hackbright Notebook. Several classmates have complemented my precious gem and told me they would like to copy it. So I decided to include the recipe in this post. This notebook is a product of my newfound penchant for organization. Thats right, I learned it. You can ask my mom – I was not this OCD as a child. In fact, my past self would probably scoff at my present self in disbelief. So what does that mean for you? If you are not super organized, you can learn to be organized too! If I can do it, you can do it.

• Recipe for a Beautiful Notebook

  • A Clear Binder

    • Elle Woods Moment for the Design Conscious: Sheer will always look chic.

  • Five Star Graph Paper

    • Graph paper > Normal Lined Paper

    • You don’t know how much paper you’ll need. Using a binder and inserting your own paper, avoids the problem of running out of notebook pages and potentially carrying around multiple notebooks.

  • Dividers w/ laminated labels.

    • Use dividers: they eliminate the need for multiple notebooks. They will make your experience of taking old fashioned notes look and feel more organized. I used a label maker (Brother P-Touch) to create the following categories for my notebook: (1) Lecture Notes (2) Project Notes (3) Homework Notes (4) Interview Prep.

    • Elle Woods Moment for the Design Conscious: Resist the urge to buy the rainbow tabs. The plain white ones with the gold edge will give your notebook a mature, minimalistic, clean feel that projects professionalism.

  • A Hackbright Sticker

    • Keep the front of your notebook looking clean. Just one Hackbright Sticker here. The back of your notebook is a great place to put all of those stickers you get at Hackathons. It’s a more contained way to show off your hacker swag, and your computer won’t end up looking like a bumper sticker car riding down a country road.

      • No offense if you have lots of stickers on your computer already. They probably look great.

    • INSTRUCTIONS: Put paper in binder, and voila, you’ve cooked a notebook.

• Develop a Routine

  • Developing a routine is crucial to staying organized. Map out your day. Stick to your plan. The point of this exercise is to take the time to actually map out your average day with specific time markers. You can think of these markers as time goals. Write out how you would like to allocate your time on an ideal day. Everyday is different, and you won’t hit your marks everyday. Taking time to write or type this typical day out for yourself will enable you to start being mindful of your time-management habits. You can break down your day in preferred time increments. The practice and should take you about 1 minute. Remember, you have the same amount of hours in a day as Beyonce.  Here’s my typical day:

6:00 AM – Wake up, make bed, coffee + breakfast

7:00 AM – Go for a run, do yoga, some exercise, get ready for Hackbright

9:30AM – Arrive at Hackbright (1/2 early)

10:00AM – Lecture, Lab

1:00 PM – Lunch

2:00PM – Lecture, Lab

6:00PM – End of Day, Commute Home

7:00PM – Arrive home, review notes, do homework, pack lunch

10:00PM – Review tomorrow’s lecture slides, read, set out clothes + pack for next day, clean room

11:00PM – Set alarm, turn off phone, go to sleep!

SANITY or SELF-CARE CHECKLIST

1. Eliminate Distractions

2. Workout + Eat Healthy + Sleep

3. Cultivate a positive attitude – You are a blank slate.

• Eliminate Distractions

  • As you can tell, I am obsessed with the idea of eliminating distractions. I am highly distractible. I am mildly ADD. If there is something around me that could distract me, like my phone, I might be tempted to focus on that instead of lecture. I’ve learned that to be successful in my goals I need to be intentional about recognizing distractions, and cutting them out of my life until I’ve accomplished my task. (.. this is why I sit in the front of lecture). Here are some more general suggestions for your Hackbright/Bootcamp experience.

  • Turn off your technology

    • During lectures and when you go to sleep, turn off your phone and laptop.

    • Personal Reflection: Before Hackbright I rarely turned off my phone. I’ve been using my phone as an alarm clock for years. I have gone months without turning off my phone. Lectures at Hackbright are device free. No phones. No computers. I cannot express to you how much this has positively changed my life! If you are going to a coding bootcamp, you are probably a technology addict. Buy an old fashioned alarm clock. Turn off your phone. You will thank me. You will thank yourself. You will find nirvana. And sleep better.

  • Delete Your Tinder

    • If you are like me and moved across the country newly single for your bootcamp, it is very tempting to want to explore the dating scene. DON’T DO IT! Especially in San Francisco. There are a lot of cute boys in person and on your phone. IGNORE THEM. Delete your Tinder/Hinge/BumbleBee/JDate and FOCUS. It’s only three months. You don’t have time for a new relationship. You can date all the boys after you find a job.

    • If you have a family or significant relationship, good luck.

  • Take a break from Facebook

    • Put important birthdays on your gCal. I promise you that basically all the news will be the same in three months.

• Work Out, Eat Healthy, and Sleep

  • Keep Your Workout Routine!

    • You will not have much time for anything, but it is crucial that you make time to keep working out. Go for a run on the weekend. Find a yoga studio. If not a yoga studio, do some yoga before you go to sleep or first thing in the morning. It will help you clear your mind and enable you to feel physically and emotionally strong as you go through this intense experience.

  • Balance Water + Coffee in-take

    • You are going to be drinking a lot of coffee. Everyone around you is going to be drinking a lot of coffee. Drink water too or you will get dehydrated and sick. Thank you.

  • Make your Lunch and Don’t Snack

    • Resist the urge to buy lunch. You will save money and eat healthier. Also, don’t snack. Snacking is evil and is the gateway drug to gaining five pounds you didn’t have before when you don’t follow my advice and slack on your workout routine. Say no to snacks. You won’t starve, I promise.

  • Sleep

    • I’ll say it again. Buy an old fashioned alarm clock. Turn off your phone at night. You will sleep better.

    • Don’t do the snooze button. The snooze button is evil and is designed to ruin your day. Set one alarm, and force yourself to sit up. You don’t necessarily need to get out of bed. But try to keep your eyes open and wake up on the first alarm. You will not miss snoozing. You will feel more awake in 5 minutes and feel more empowered to take on the day.

• Cultivate a Positive Attitude – You are a Blank Slate

  • You are a Blank Slate

    • You are writing a new chapter of your life. Learn from your past experiences, and be grateful for them. But at this point, the past in behind you. You get to be who you want to be now. Embrace your unique story. We are all coming to Hackbright with different backgrounds and experiences. How you frame your past to yourself will determine how free you will be to successfully blossom into your ideal self.  It’s important that you take time to think about what in your past experience will help make you an incredible software engineer.

  • Be Positive, you have a lot to be grateful for!

    • Hackbright only accepts 5-8% of applicants. You are here for a reason. You set your mind to this, and you are here. Trust the process and yourself. This is going to be an incredible, challenging, life-changing 12 weeks!

    • The moment you have your first crying spree, step back and look around you.  You are getting to learn! You made a dream come true! You are learning how to code! You are getting the opportunity of a lifetime to change your path in an innovative, cutting edge educational environment. That bug may be a little bitch, but at least this problem has a solution. You will get it eventually. Keep going. Life is pretty good.

  • Do not try to win Hackbright.

    • Listen, no one here is a software engineer yet. Everyone is coming in at different levels. Everyone is coming in with different experience.Some people had more time to do pre-work than others. Don’t compare yourself to everyone else and sell yourself short.  No one is going to have the same journey.

  • Set Realistic Expectations

    • As amazing as Hackbright is, at the end of the day, what you learn and where you end up after is up to your hard work and efforts. Hackbright is going to be what you make it. It’s up to you to advocate for yourself, take on outside challenges, and network. You will make mistakes. The Hackbright Staff are incredible, but not perfect human beings. No one can predict what challenges lie ahead of your job search. Shoot for your dream job, and have a backup plan. Theres no one way to get to your goal.

  •  Be Compassionate to Yourself and Others

    • Give your classmates the benefit of the doubt.

      • Check your arrogance at the door. Everyone is going to have moments where they feel like a genius. Everyone is going to have moments where they feel like an idiot. Allow each other to have those moments without defining one another by those moments. Everyone is here to grow and learn.

So there you go.

If you’ve gone through Hackbright, or another bootcamp,  I’d love to hear your thoughts, comments, and suggestions.

Have a great first week!

< C >

After a lot of hard work and determination, I am thrilled to announce that my bootcamp dreams have finally come true!!

I will be attending Hackbright Academy as a Summer 2015 Software Engineering Fellow in San Francisco.

Hackbright Academy is the leading software engineering school for women founded in San Francisco in 2012. The academy graduates more female engineers than Stanford and UC Berkeley each year.

Here is the jist of what I’ll be learning:

http://hackbrightacademy.com/content/uploads/2014/11/FellowshipProgramSyllabus.pdf

(also available on their website)

It’s going to be a challenging, life changing summer!

Bring it on!

< C >

….Since I’ve updated my blog.

Only because I have been SO busy applying to bootcamps, building my final project for Codecademy, working on my portfolio, and attending my first Hackathon! I have so much to update. Ideally, I would like to dedicate separate blog posts to each of these milestones. Good news, the eye before the storm is upon me. So the next few posts will be backdated reflections of all I’ve learned in the past few weeks/months. Stay tuned!!

< C >

ALL THE LADIES WHO TRULY FEEL ME
THROW YO’ HANDS UP AT ME

Excuse me for the humble brag… but never in my wildest dreams did I imagine this sight!

…I have made it to the top of the Leaderboard of my fierce 15 person Code Academy Labs Cohort!

Two weeks in a row!

 I’d like to thank Code Academy.

#GirlsRule

< C >

I’ll start with Valentine’s Day – my first date with Ruby on Rails. It was fantastic. We spent five straight hours together on a romantic, blizzardy Saturday afternoon, snuggled in the cozy offices of Dev Bootcamp in the Financial District of NYC. I know it’s early to say this, but from first download to first project pushed to GitHub from my command line…I’m pretty sure it’s love.

Prior to starting the Ruby track in the Code Academy Labs curriculum I had dabbled in every language track aside from Ruby: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, Python, and PHP. I’m not sure why I left Ruby for last, but I’m glad that I did. Now I can appreciate Ruby’s elegance.

According to www.ruby-lang.org, “Ruby is a dynamic, open source language with focus on simplicity and productivity. It has an elegant syntax that is natural to read and easy to write.” Ruby was designed and developed by Yukihiro Matsumoto (or “Matz”). Matz created Ruby because he wanted programming to be more enjoyable for the programmer. Ruby was designed to emphasize human needs over computer needs.  Apparently, at a Google Tech Talk in 2008, Matsumoto explained that Ruby is designed to make you fall in love =>

I hope to see Ruby help every programmer in the world to be productive, and to enjoy programming, and to be happy. That is the primary purpose of Ruby language.” – Yukihiro Matsumoto | Google Tech Talks, 2008

If you’ve ever read any Ruby code, you’ll notice that unlike JavaScript (not to hate), it reads a lot like plain english.

For example…

A JavaScript function generally looks something like this:

var name = function(param1, param2) {

           if (param1 === param2) {

                // executes this code if condition is true!;

           } else {

            // executes this code if condition is false!;

       }

};

In Ruby, the same function generally looks like this:

def name (param1, param2)

      if param 1 > param2

          puts “param1 is greater than param2”

     else

         puts “param2 is greater than param1”

     end

end

See how it’s a little easier? You don’t have to think so much about white space or semicolons in Ruby. In JavaScript, a forgotten or misplaced semicolon will stop your program from running. With Ruby, you will spend less time fixing bugs and more time focusing on the logic of your program.

Ruby is an object-oriented, high-level programming language. High Level programming languages read more like english and less like byte code (think 0101001 – matrix projections on the wall).  High level languages need to be interpreted or compiled into machine code before they can be understood by the computer. Machine code is a low-level language. Machine code is the only language that can be understood by a microprocessor directly without translation. You could code in machine code, but it would be much more complicated. You would need to remember a lot of different combinations of letters and numbers that have no obvious logic (08002FA 0G034FA … etc ).  Low-level languages have very little abstraction between the language and the computer’s instruction set architecture. Low-level languages are obviously more difficult and time-consuming, but they are faster and use less memory since you are basically speaking the same language as your computer (but with a slightly different dialect). However, we are humans, and we love abstractions – so thankfully there are high level languages like Ruby. High Level languages feel more like natural languages and are easier to write, read, and maintain. This graphic from webopedia.com is a nice visualization. Ruby would be at the top of the pyramid.

Ruby is an object-oriented language. For many new programmers the significance of ‘object-oriented programming’ (OOP) is probably flying over your head – it was for me, until I looked it up. We probably won’t be doing anything but OOP because most languages commonly used to build web apps and mobile apps are object oriented. Java, Python, C++, VisualBasic .NET, and Ruby are all ‘OO’.

OOP empowers the human. OOP says logic should be concept driven. First identify concepts in your data and map out the relationships between them, then write your logic. Pre-OOP, programming was about writing logic to manipulate objects/data input, processes, and output. The hierarchy of focus was logic => object; bottom to top, trickle up.  Object Oriented Programming flips that priority over. OOP approaches programming object => logic; top to bottom; no trickling, just powerful organized systematic efficiency.  For example, if I’m using OOP to create an address book, I would focus on the relationships between my data and start categorizing it into “objects”. When I look at my data, I see that all my friends have a Name, Phone Number, and Address. At the highest level, I would need a Person Object that takes Name, Phone, Address.  I can then make a New Person Object, and my program will know that New Person Bob will have a Name, Phone Number, and Address. For more on why OOP makes sense, read this article.

I have completed several Ruby on Rails projects. You can see them here: www.github.com/carobinson. More to come.

< C >

I went to the Manhattan.Js Meet Up at Flatiron School on Wednesday night. Speakers included Sara J Chipps (Founder, Girl Develop It), Tom Dale (Co-Founder, Tile-Ember), and Sebastiano Armeli (Spotify).

I did pretty well for being so new to JavaScript… I won two contests!  I won tickets to a sold out event hosted by LittleBits, the ReactJS Meetup on Februrary 24th, AND tickets to the EmpireJS 2015 conference in April.

Coincidently, EmpireJS 2015 is Broadway themed this year… And I won a free $350 ticket for coming up with the best JavaScript inspired Broadway show title… “IF/ELSE”.

We’re still fleshing out the music + casting…

IF (Idina === available){

console.log(“We’re going to make a lot of money!”)

} ELSE {

console.log(“We can always see if Lou Ann is available…”)

};

Of course the first big tech event I’m going to is Broadway themed! You never know where your path will take you…

IF only they knew…

So excited to attend these events and dive into that JavaScript textbook in the meantime.

<C>

“Embrace obstacles, they are just telling you to go back and revisit your path.”

–  The JavaScript Forum

We are learning JavaScript and jQuery for two weeks. The projects are very similar to  the jQuery projects on Code Academy. The material provided a cursory introduction to JavaScript, but I could probably dive into using jQuery now.

 For you fellow newbs, jQuery is a library of JavaScript code used to build dynamic features like sliders, accordions, widgets and interactive animations into websites. We learned about jQuery syntax, event handlers, styling, and traversing the DOM. In addition to Code Academy, I supplemented with Code School’s try jQuery course : http://try.jquery.com/levels/6/challenges/1.

Per the suggestion of classmates, I’m really excited to dive into this great book on JavaScript & jQuery:

It’s a very user friendly text-book.You can find it on Amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/JavaScript-JQuery-Interactive-Front-End-Development/dp/1118531647

We are also learning about Git.

Git is not the same as gitHub. Git is a Version Control System (VSC) that enables developers to save every draft of their code. If you decide you want to go back to an earlier version, everything is saved and recorded by Git. Github is a social sharing website where developers can upload or ‘push’ their code, and work on a project simultaneously without stepping on toes. Github is similar to working on a GoogleDoc – you can work on the same document remotely, and see what other people are contributing. But, unlike Google Docs, you can work offline, and you can’t delete or over write anyone else’s work. Developers use VCSs to save every piece of code written by any one team member – so nothing gets lost, and everyone is on the same page at all times.

There are three phases of Git: 1. Working Directory, 2. Staging Area, 3. Repository. When you are writing or making changes to code, you are in the working directory. You pull the code from the git repository you want to work from, and bring it into your working directory. Then before you finally ‘push’ your code back to the git repository, it goes to a place called ‘The Staging Area’. When code is ‘staged’ you can still make changes that won’t be saved.  Finally, you commit your code to the git directory/repository that is then posted on your gitHub.  All this is done on your console.

Here are some other resources for learning Git that I’ve found useful:

Pro Git – : http://git-scm.com/book/en/v2 – you can download the book for free as a PDF.

Git – The simple guide: http://rogerdudler.github.io/git-guide/

15 min tutorial – Try Git via Code School: https://try.github.io/levels/1/challenges/1

More of Difference between Git + Github: http://www.jahya.net/blog/?2013-05-git-vs-github

Let me know if you find these helpful, and feel free to leave more resources in the comments section!

You know what else was exciting this week?? I am on the Leaderboard for Code Academy Labs!

Choose to conquer life.

~

< C >

 Early in the morning, risin’ to the street
Light me up that cigarette and I strap shoes on my feet
Got to find a reason, a reason things went wrong
Got to find a reason why my [ code is ] all gone

#

Code Academy labs surpassed expectations this week. We are now writing all code on the Sublime text editor. Prior to starting this course I was concerned that we would just be learning on the Code Academy browser platform. While the browser platform is great for beginners (me), I feel more confident that I will actually come out of this course with applicable skills. Two weeks in, and I am pretty confident I could start building my own webpages with HTML + CSS. I just have to figure out how to deploy…

The second week was more challenging. The first twenty minutes of class is a lecture; the rest of 4.5 hours is spent pair programming. We had different partners this week. I had the opportunity of being the slightly more knowledgable partner. Coincidently, my partner and I both came from backgrounds in film production.

As a slightly more knowledgeable beginner, I found it important to be cognizant of the following:

1. Slowing down and sharing knowledge

2. Staying confident in what I did know

3. Googling

We had a bit of trouble setting up Sublime at first. My computer did not want to play with it. In fact, it refused to work until we humbled ourselves to it’s power. After 45 minutes of fiddling by myself and the TA, it worked after a hard restart.

 It was my first experience with code magic/mystery.

However, we did finally get it up and running. And ended up catching up to the rest of the class.

We also learned a fun little Sublime trick called ‘Emmet’. He is awesome. He’s a text-editing ninja. And I shall be his student. Homework is to try to memorize the short-cuts this week.

Until then, I have hours and hours of coding a head of me!

< C >

Hi – My name is Carly. I’m an aspiring web developer living in NYC.

Saturday, Jan 17th was my first class as a student of Cohort Awesome – Code Academy Labs NYC January 2015 Cohort. The Labs curriculum covers HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, Angular.JS and Ruby on Rails in a 12 week part-time course. The class meets every Saturday from 12-5PM at DevBootcamp in NYC, with roughly 25 hours of take-home work, and an office-hour style Google Hangout on Tuesdays.

The January 2015 Cohort stars 15 dynamic, intelligent, accomplished individuals from various backgrounds. A handful are working in the tech industry. Others boast backgrounds as diverse as theater and banking.

 We tackled the first HTML + CSS projects by pair programming the first day. Pair programming is  when one person “drives” (types), while the other person “navigates”(dictates code). As we are all relative beginners, working in pairs is great opportunity to learn from others while gaining confidence in what you already know.

We programmed for almost 5 straight hours. The time flew by and the experience was invigorating.

I am so grateful to work with Code Academy, and excited to take this next step in my education. I’ll try to make posts each week. I’m hoping this blog will be a resource and a source of encouragement for other women who are interested in learning to code. Feel free to leave comments and ask me questions.

< C >