Paramore’s new music video Still Into You!
(Source: not-another-depressing-blog)
Welcome to my blog.
For all of those wondering, this is the first image that pops up on Google Image search when types in, “Programmer.” Needless to say, it isn’t the most flattering image: here we have a bowl-cut-haired, glasses-clad, coffee-drinking, double-monitor-wielding, sweater-vest-wearing dork. Fifty-bucks says this is exactly what pops into most people’s minds when they hear the word “programmer.” Very two-dimensional, as black and white as the terminal window they program in, seated forever in their ten by ten cubicle. That’s what they’re ALL like, right?
Wrong: lemme tell you somethin’, sweetheart, that ain’t the truth.
Basically, I wanted to make this blog to show people that just because you’re proficient in Python or know your way around SQL database, that doesn’t mean you’re the nerd in the back of the room with his pants pulled up WAY to high. How do I know this? Simple: I speak from experience. I’m a tall, blonde, female computer science major, usually clad in a pair of cowboy boots and an Alpha Chi Omega shirt. I’m a member of our school’s western dance team, ADORE college football, and played Princess Peach last year in the annual Sing Song competition. So, when people ask what major I am and they hear the truth, their surprise is evident.
I can remember one day, I came to my class early by mistake and the class before me was still wrapping up. It was Business Calculus, and as I entered, a student was still talking to the professor. He was being scolded for falling asleep in class, but when he said it was because the material was so dull and “pointless”, do you know what the teacher responded?
“At least you’re not a Computer Science major!”
I couldn’t believe it, I mean was she THAT ignorant? Sure, EVERY subject can be boring at times, but POINTLESS? In a world where 150,000 new URL’s are created each day, where almost everything has a computer chip in it, and where the storage and acquisition of information is more important then that of money…you try to say computer science isn’t important? Excuse me, but bitch please. Computer Science is not only NOT pointless, but arguably the one of the most important fields to go into!
So why such a negative stereotype, both physically and esthetically? Especially when you have people like Chris Hardwick (The Nerdist), Justine Ezarik (iJustine), and John Green (author of The Fault in Our Stars) jumping and screaming that nerdiness IS amazing! It’s innovating and imaginative! Computers, science-fiction, video-games: they all push us to do things better, faster, stronger IRL!
I want to break this two-dimensional mold the world has put around that of the programmer. I’m done with being pigeon holed into the same category as Mandark from Dexter’s Laboratory. We’re not just peons that tap on a keyboard for a greater project that someone more confident and charismatic designed. We can be leaders, we can be charismatic, we can be (dare I say it) cool.
I’m here to prove programmers are not binary beings.
