Adoptable Goats Near Me: What I Googled the Year I Became a Developer

hello we're we're in this room for

adoptable goats near me who would I

googled the year I became a developer my

name is Kim mana but we'll get into that

a little bit later I just want to start

off with some housekeeping stuff real

quick I work at a company called

bounteous we create big picture digital

solutions that help a leading companies

deliver transformational brand

experiences which is a fancy way of

saying we do all the things and it's

really helpful for all of our clients we

have lots of analytics people and design

development and we deal with Drupal and

we're also hiring so we have a table

held in the sponsor area next if you go

to mid dot camp slash 274 you can give

me feedback on this session

I would personally and greatly

appreciate any feedback this is only my

second time doing this session so still

in the works and also contribution day

is on Saturday

it's from 10:00 to 4:00 but Amy June is

doing a training from 10:00 to noon and

I went at Florida trooper camp and it's

a very very great training if you've

never done any contributions Drupal I

would highly suggest yelling because

it's super fun everyone is very nice and

supportive um you don't even have to be

a developer you can do like

documentation which is like real

important and kinda lacking so if if

anyone wants to do you're just like

marginally interested I would highly

suggest going to contribution day we'd

love to have you there will there will

be lots of friendly family cases

including this one

okay so let's get into this Who am I

I'm come on my name is Kim on a box and

if you google my name Kim onna this is

more or less what you'll find it's a bit

of a Mitch like mishmash of different

things there is like and I am DB page a

Bandcamp page for like music there is

even a face cream I think it's a face

cream that's my name all the things on

here relevant to me it's a very very

strange tale in our and our story starts

roughly here back in 2016 this is like

largely what you would get if you

googled me now if you google me there's

a lot more like professional fancy

things because I work for a lot of

places like I work with things that have

really great SEO so now they're there

but before it was a bunch of like kind

of random things like who is come on

back in 2016 I was a teacher I worked

abroad I just gotten back from a

contract in China where I was developing

a curriculum for a music school and I

had recently signed a two-year contract

to help develop a curriculum at an

international school in Beijing so you

might be asking yourself how do you go

from like signing a contract to teach in

Beijing to a Drupal developer person

standing in front of a room full of

people at a Drupal camp well

unfortunately my mother was diagnosed in

by the end of the year she had passed

away and I assumed custody of my then

nine-year-old sister now you might be

thinking to yourself come on why would

you like entice me into this room with

talk of goats and googling stuff and

then like hit me with this this

craziness like why would you do this

well first it's what happened

chronologically second I figure if I set

the bar like low I start start off on

this like very low sad note you only go

up from here but most importantly to

start with the point that there's

something to learn from every experience

now this comes with a caveat when I say

there is something to learn from every

experience I'm not saying that you

should definitely distill all of your

trauma down until like swirly-twirly

font Pinterest images and share them

across all your social media that's all

I'm saying things don't need to be like

distilled down into like tiny digestible

pretty pieces that you can like slap on

a postcard

what I'm saying when I talk about

learning I'm talking about just the

simple act of gaining knowledge so when

I go throughout my day when I am like

living my life especially in times of

high stress or thing when things are not

going according to plan I like to look

back on my experience doesn't think what

do I know now that I didn't know then

and the acquisition of knowledge doesn't

need to be oh well I did this thing in

and hey magically now I know how to like

do my taxes err

oh I experienced this this this thing

and now I can write Drupal migrations I

don't know it doesn't have to be like

this happened and now this it's just

like I have learned the thing I have

acquired a new nugget I know now having

gone through that and of trying

experience that I know more about how I

handle stress how I move about the world

I know a little bit about guardianship

laws I know I know a lot more things and

they're not necessarily things that are

like concrete tangible or practical for

that matter but knowing like being aware

of that that

act of gaining more knowledge being more

aware of like myself in my surroundings

it's valuable and you know that self so

as the you know time kind of continued

lot through the experience of losing my

mother and taking custody of my sister

but it still had a lot more to learn and

I got to a point where I needed to start

thinking seriously about like the rest

of my life and so what that meant is

considering where I was so at the time I

was a teacher I wasn't a licensed

teacher in the United States I was

teaching overseas and they don't

necessarily require the same licensure

and stuff so I also knew that way while

my majority of my experience

professionally had been in education I

wasn't necessarily thrilled about the

idea of being an educator in the United

States as you may be well aware teachers

are not treated particularly well in the

US and so I started trying to think

about other things that kind of held my

interest like what did I enjoy doing so

I thought about coding and programming I

I made some small like dinky video games

here and there and I played around with

the idea before but I had never

considered it to be like something that

I was going to pursue professionally but

when I made that decision

I started looking at coding boot camps

and I ended up selecting a coding boot

camp called dev bootcamp there now

defunct but it was while I was there it

was a really really great experience

they it was an intensive program that

was total about 18 weeks and it started

off with nine weeks remote learning like

web development fundamentals and then

like nine weeks on site where you were

there for like 16 hour days sometimes

from like sunup sundown and you were

just like but breast into this this

thing where you had to like pair program

and like figure out how to solve these

problems and you know in a way that way

was going to who's going to like help

you like really retain an information

right because at the end of the day

you're doing this boot camp to jump into

an entirely different career learning

some of the like learning enough

information and how to do things

so that you can be competitive in a job

market with people that went to school

for this stuff so needless to say it was

a very very high stakes environment

where like learning the information and

retaining that information and being

able to like replicate those processes

super important so I had to kind of

think back to my teacher days and be

like oh well dang it I know how how

learning works right I know I know how

how my own learning works so let's apply

these things so I don't drown in all

this this information that's getting

thrown at me so the first thing like the

first strategy that I kind of adopted

was like I recognize that context is key

and when I say this I mean the context

in which you are like learning these

things if you are constantly like just

at your desk in front of the computer

every day doing the same thing it your

your retention might not be as good as

if for example one day you're at your

computer or like the next day you move

to your kitchen table and start doing

things like studies have shown that just

like small changes in the context in

which that you're in which you're like

like obtaining this information helps

you retain the information and helps you

like generalize it to a bunch of

different scenarios so it's similar to

like how if you're teaching a dog to sit

I don't know if you've ever tried to

train a dog but if you are everyday kind

of the refrigerator

telling your doctor sit and the dog sits

beautifully in front of the refrigerator

do you like move to like in front of

your couch and try the same thing dog

gets kind of confused dogs have a hard

time generalize and so like in order to

reinforce that kind that behavior and

that learning

doing it in a bunch of different places

and like providing a bunch of different

stimuli will reinforce that behavior in

that learning to a point where that

recall is reliable and it works the same

with like URI when we're learning

information test yourself testing

yourself is a really really great way to

like add stakes to your learning and and

really make sure that you have like

acquired the knowledge that you think

you have this works both ways as well

like if you are testing yourself on

certain information you then know like

what you what you need to let go back

and review this is this can also be

effective like at the beginning of your

learning where maybe you haven't like

done anything and you want to like take

a test like a practice test or something

like that or like figure out like what

the things you need to learn are and

then test yourself on those things so

you can see like what information you

already have even if you haven't spent

any time like actively developing that

but not and then come back and like test

yourself again and see how much you've

grown it's a it's a great way to like

measure your growth as well also

teaching people it's a great way to do

both of those things so Mary - Mary both

those concepts of changing up the

context and testing yourself I was lucky

enough to have a child at my disposal

fun thing about children is that their

vocabularies tend to be smaller their

attention spans seem to be they tend to

be much shorter they also have no shame

and they're very brutal so if you're

trying to explain something to a child

you have to be able to distill that

that that thing down to like its most

simple pieces if you can explain

something to a child it kind of

demonstrates your understanding of like

the different parts where you don't have

to rely on like jargon or or or like

kind of technical things or any

assumptions that you made about the

other person that like if you're if

you're used to talking to technical

people about like technical problems a

really great way to test yourself is to

talk to a non-technical person and see

if the same person understands it

because that way you don't get to rely

on the assumptions that you have about

other people's knowledge a great thing

about kids is that they'll tell you if

they don't understand a thing they'll

just like look at you and be like I

don't I don't get it and also if I don't

know if you've interacted with children

like my sister but she'll just kind of

walk away no I'm done with this

conversation now and you've lost your

chance to practice so bye yeah

and so yeah teaching people children

going out and like doing outreach or

like finding a person that you can

mentor and we'll talk a little bit more

about that later as well but like those

are really great ways to reinforce the

things that you've learned so as I go to

boot camp I learned a lot but I also

didn't learn things as quickly as I

wanted to and it was full of very angry

error screens and like very very very

non functioning code as is expected when

you're learning something new and what

that as a person who is I tend to pride

myself on like my ability to like burn

things quickly but I really struggled

and this was one of the first times that

I I felt like truly challenged that that

threat of failure was looming so the

value in this is that failure provides

context and this comfort provides a

catalyst so failure providing context

like we established before like it

context is very important so the more

you click with you with you you fail in

like you get more information about like

the process so writing writing something

and getting an error message well that's

that's a new error message that I've

never seen before and how do I not

written that real bad code and made my

computer very angry at me I wouldn't

have experienced this thing so

sailing provides opportunities to gain a

deeper understanding of moving parts so

if you are only successful like if you

are only ever like writing perfect code

or like doing something successfully

like realistically that's not how light

operates things are gonna be like on

fire just all the time and it's very

rare that you're going to be able to

operate in a perfectly like everything

is going as planned

and so failing at things and when things

don't when things break all the time I

loose initially like you get that extra

context that extra information I am I am

much better at debugging my code now

because I have encountered so many areas

I've learned how to solve those problems

and had I not done that I wouldn't have

known like I wouldn't have gotten that

information that this is I wouldn't have

gotten the information like oh this

problem is a thing that exists then but

to perform this function I need these

pieces okay I will not forget those

pieces in the future and if I do and it

says this I will know how to address

that problem and so yeah failing makes

your knowledge more robust it's not it's

not thin it's not brittle because you

have all this background to back it up

so I have pictured here

like the different it's like a diagram

of different like learning zones right

so when motivation and accountability

are high and you feel like

psychologically safe you're good you're

in the learning zone so when I say

discomfort I'm not talking about like oh

I feel like emotionally exhausted in

this situation or I feel threatened or I

feel like just physically unsafe safety

and discomfort are very different it's

kind of like faatima saying in her

keynote where discomfort is assigned a

like you are challenging some

assumptions or like your previously like

sleep knowledge right so you want to

feel like you're being challenged and

when you are motivated and held

accountable for things and you also are

in a state where you feel like safe then

like then you that's like the prime area

for you to land

so coding bootcamp uh-huh after days and

days and weeks and weeks and weeks of

coding and banging my head against the

computer and maybe one or two just like

tearful coding sessions remember suck

why won't you work

I finished up and it was the last day we

had made our final project it was my

final project was this lovely story they

locate you make story-telling act where

you would go to a place and like drop up

head up like a story so that you could

like see like basically like a like a

living 7 kind of thing where you're

there reading the story in its setting

where it's intended to be right but all

that coding makes you hungry and so I

wanted a burrito and went to a burrito

place and while I was there this guy saw

me and my coding shirt he heard me

talking to my classmate without like

some of the code we were writing for my

project he was like oh so you're you're

at Doku camp you're like how do you how

do you like programming

and I was like it's great it's the best

thing ever I I think it's like the best

thing I've ever done in my life is I

love this decision I'm so happy that I

made it I was just like really

enthusiastic turns out that guy was

hiring and so that's how I caught my

first job a hum and what this kind of

taught me is that enthusiasm she gets

when you are excited about learning

people that are excited about talking

about stuff want to talk to you because

you're excited to hear great when people

wouldn't be around you like they're like

you get to make these collisions that

like you may not have made before and

like I mean people are great but it can

also like add a lot of value to like

your own stuff yeah that's it doesn't

slide bothering people can be fun and

productive

when you when you find people that are

like knowledgeable and a thing that you

would like to learn about and again

you're enthusiastic and like you you

have that hunger for knowledge a lot of

times people are going to be like please

I would love to talk to you about this

thing that I've been learning about I I

was lucky enough in that position to

have really great mentors and be like

constantly challenged I walked into that

not knowing a lick of PHP and knowing

nothing about Drupal aside from what I

Google right before my job interview and

I was basically just like thrown

challenges like hey we need to get this

data from point A to point B do it yeah

it's like oh I don't know how to do okay

we'll learn how to do it do it okay cool

that's done great I next I need you to

write like a cron job so that we can get

this stuff on a schedule Cindy what's

cron

cool that's your next task go learn that

and then like apply it and then come

back to me when you're done with that

and that was like invaluable to the way

like to the way I've been able to like

kind of jump in and learn things I I

learned it's such like a high rate

because there was like there were these

people just like always available for

like if I had a question they would

answer my question they wouldn't be like

should know that or like there was no

there is no like weird hierarchy it was

just people willing to like solve a

problem and willing to help you solve a

problem and that that's just that was

just cream the mentoring also works both

ways I as a person who has only the

developer for I guess like a little over

a year and a half now even then like

even string out of boot camp I knew that

I knew more than some people you always

will know something more than someone

else you don't have to be like the

expert to be able to help someone so

what I did is I immediately signed up

and helped mentor for cope looking which

is another coding boot camp that is open

to veterans and their spouses it's a

really really great program run by some

really amazing people and I know I I

knew but I didn't know a whole lot but I

knew that I could help someone that

didn't know anything and that I wanted

to provide that for someone else

because I was so lucky to have that when

I was going through my boot camp and

again mentoring people helps you

reinforce your own learning you have to

be like you have to know your stuff

unless you just like if you're the type

of person that's going to mentor someone

you're the type of person that probably

doesn't want to tell them incorrect

information

so mentoring holds you accountable to

like really knowing what you're talking

about because otherwise you're setting

someone else up for failure so and also

it's this real fun and you get to help

people and it's great but it does

wonders for your learning and people

that like don't know about the thing

that you're talking about will ask you

some amazing questions that you never

thought to ask yourself and as always

like show up for things it's like and

that's not to say like being on time and

if you're if you're on time then you're

wait so be there 15 minutes early and

that's on time it's not it's not what I

mean by show up uh I mean that like this

be present and being present in the

moment you never know what like

opportunities are going to play at you

and it's it's just really it's really

great and amazing like knowing

like the amount of opportunities that

have just kind of like appeared because

I was in a room listening to people just

say words and just being present in a

room like I cannot even begin to fathom

like me wanting a burrito and then some

guy being like you like coding and I'm

like yeah I like coding and then like

now that's how I got introduced to

Drupal and now I am here telling people

words and that's like who would have

thought that like chain-reaction

what happened I wouldn't have but that's

why it's important to just be present

and like be enthusiastic just in your

life because it's real fun lots of nice

things happen so how do you want to talk

what let's that forward a little bit so

that was taking place we're really good

the course of like 2017 it is now 2019 I

feel like I am getting further and

further more entrenched into the Drupal

community I so Google lots of things

because I don't know I don't know

everything and there are so many people

that know all the things on the internet

and it's great but

where I'm at now is just amazing like I

am very happy to have started working in

Drupal because I have been exposed to so

many amazing people like this community

is just the best community and like I

don't I don't even like I couldn't have

ever fathomed being here right now

talking to all you lovely people back in

like 2016 when what it felt like my life

was crumbling apart like the Drupal

community and especially like people

that organize camps and get these like

events together are just so amazing and

welcoming and like

it's it's amazing like how much I've

been able to learn with like their help

and I'm excited for the future and to

see what else there is to learn so

that's it if you if you'll have any

questions feel free to ask me I do not

have a slide that says questions oh yeah

yes

searching technical do you ever get that

when you go here named yeah we're

No yeah so the question was when I

google my name do I do I forget did you

mean something else I used to I used to

get like ten pond or something like that

but now there's enough stuff just like

out there and the Google nurse that like

if I google my name it also could just

be like my computer knows it's me and

it's like okay I know me and something

else but there's enough stuff just like

on the Internet

I mean yeah but I don't get that anymore

from my own and it's more Shack and

mentoring each other or were they just

I'd like to think that they were

mentoring each other yes yes at the end

of the day aren't we all just like the

product of that kind of like little

enthusiasm shouldn't we strive to be a

shack and the literally cat just

yeah any other questions yes did you

back the critical role Kickstarter yes I

did for people that are listening I'm

wearing a critical role hoodie and I did

back the critical role Kickstarter and

I'm very excited about that yes what is

the critical role

critical role is they are a bunch of

voice actors who play D&D and stream it

and they have a Kickstarter to turn

their campaign into like a animated

series and it it's super duper it's like

like a okay there are many zeroes many

more zeros after the amount of money

that they raised versus what they ate

Ashley asked for so excited it's

currently the highest-grossing

Kickstarter film

but yeah I'm gonna