Robots & Notebooks
I got my start in tech at a very young age. When I was 8 years old, I took a robotics course at my school. I remember being the only girl in the class and feeling scared about not knowing anything, but I had a great teacher and mentor. Without their guidance, I might not have continued on my journey through tech, learning about electronics, mechanics and basic programming logic for the next few years.
At age 11, I took the next step and actually started coding. There was a course at my local university where I learned about web development. I left feeling pretty confused, but I was intrigued so I went to my nearest library and got 3 books on HTML, CSS and JavaScript. My summer revolved around these books, and I would write snippets of code in my notebook to practice.
The Magic of Hackathons
When it came time for high school, I continued to pursue my passion in robotics, attending a school with one of the best teams in the region. I got my first job in tech when I was 17 building C# .NET interfaces for a local architecture company. This is also when I discovered hackathons. I learned about HackMTY, and I decided to participate. Part of the MLH Hackathon League, HackMTY showed me how special hackathons are and how much you can learn in a single weekend.
Looking back, this event was a really special moment for me. You wouldn’t believe my excitement when I learned there were hundreds of hackathons across the world to participate in through MLH, and if I hadn’t attended HackMTY I might have never learned about the MLH Fellowship program.
From Hacker to Fellow
Once I learned about the Fellowship I applied immediately. I didn’t make it the first time I applied, but as I learned more skills and technologies at hackathons and rounded out my portfolio I applied again. I remember sitting in class when I had lost all hope that I would be accepted when the email came through — “You’re going to be an MLH Fellow!”
The MLH Fellowship was a life changer for me, specifically for teaching me how the software development cycle actually works. I had learned a lot of new frameworks, techniques, APIs, and technologies by attending hackathons, but the Fellowship was the first time I got to use these skills in a real-world setting.
If there’s a piece of advice I’d give to aspiring Fellows it’s to continue applying! I didn’t realize that many Fellows apply multiple times before landing a spot in the program. If you haven’t been to a hackathon or Global Hack Week event yet, you should also check them out — these events are great places to learn critical skills that you’ll need to succeed in the MLH Fellowship program.
My Time as an MLH Fellow
During the program, I contributed to Consul.NET, a .NET client library for the Consul HTTP API maintained by the G-Research Open Source Software team. My major task was to update the Consul.NET repo to the next target version ( v1.7.14 to v1.9.17) for some missing API endpoints. After researching all of the different endpoints and missing services, I had created a roadmap for the program, and I updated 3 of the API endpoints during my Fellowship.
It can be a bit nervewracking as a Fellow working with project maintainers, but I learned how important it is to ask questions. At first I was a bit shy and didn’t always share when I was struggling. As soon as I started asking questions, though, I really started to progress. Something I love about the Fellowship is how much they stress learning, and not just the technical side. You definitely improve your coding and programming skills, but you also learn so much more about what it takes to succeed in tech.
The Power of Community
Fast forward to now, and I’m studying at university doing research on brain computer interfaces for prosthetics. I’ve won prizes at 12 hackathons and still compete on a robotics team. I joined the GitHub Campus Experts program (they loved how active I am as a hacker!), and I landed an internship with Insulet because they loved my background in open source.
Looking at where I am today, I know it wouldn’t have been possible without the MLH community. I’ve seen how special it is to learn alongside other hackers, and I wanted to be a part of helping other aspiring hackers like me. The support of the MLH community really boosted my career path.
Now I work as an MLH Coach where I travel to hackathons to provide the same mentorship that was so valuable to me and stream technical content at Global Hack Weeks. Hopefully I’ll get to see you there and help you unlock the next step in your tech journey!
