A thread:
College had always been very grad-school-focused, for me: do the NSF REUs, do the industry internships, take the GRE, get a PhD, be lady Carl Sagan.
But halfway through senior year, my mom got very sick (heart issues); and I needed to get a big-girl-job to support us.
College had always been very grad-school-focused, for me: do the NSF REUs, do the industry internships, take the GRE, get a PhD, be lady Carl Sagan.
But halfway through senior year, my mom got very sick (heart issues); and I needed to get a big-girl-job to support us.
Role: developing geophysics plug-ins & geoprocessing scripts at Chevron.
That job isn't something that I would have selected, by a long mile—but it let me experiment with machine learning, with data science, and with tools like Spark, on massive amounts of accelerators/compute.
That job isn't something that I would have selected, by a long mile—but it let me experiment with machine learning, with data science, and with tools like Spark, on massive amounts of accelerators/compute.
Chevron also paid for me to go to grad school, at night (carbonate geology, computer science), and offered a flexible every-other-Friday-off schedule...
...which meant that I had time to go to conferences, contribute to open-source, found a PyLadies chapter in Houston, more.
...which meant that I had time to go to conferences, contribute to open-source, found a PyLadies chapter in Houston, more.
The company was also short-staffed enough, on the SWE side, that I got to direct the work of other engineers at 23 (!!).
The "extracurriculars" that I did while working at CVX, and the professional experiences, were what made getting a job at Microsoft (and then Google) possible
The "extracurriculars" that I did while working at CVX, and the professional experiences, were what made getting a job at Microsoft (and then Google) possible
I'm grateful every day that my initial plans didn't work out, and that I was lucky enough (and believe me: it is **luck**) to find a job that helped grow my skills, and gave me the flexibility to pursue other interests.
But I ever executed on "grand career plans"?
Hard nope. 😊
But I ever executed on "grand career plans"?
Hard nope. 😊
the only thing a person can be sure of is that life will surprise them
