Folks, there's some stuff going on with #BlackTechTwitter that's not my place to speak on- but some friends gave me a heads up so I'm on standby in case what I bring can be helpful.
I will say something on the overall issue of bootcamps and mentorship.
I will say something on the overall issue of bootcamps and mentorship.
Years and years ago a Black-American woman DMed me about what frameworks and languages I recommended. I gave her good advice- for my ecosystem "Oh, start with what your friends are doing, they'll have access to work in those areas". Because in Shenzhen- we're all in tech🤦🏻♀️
"Waddya mean you don't know any programmers?" 😅Remember when I was getting started I could pop on WeChat and talk to engineers at Tencent, Huawei- you name it. I'm a Shenzhen girl I either knew someone or could get to someone. The idea of not having a *single* "in" blew my mind.
I'm a self-taught engineer by virtue of not having gone to school- I've spent thousands of hours in production meetings, working on hardware and I live in the middle of the largest manufacturing ecosystem on the planet with a thousand engineers on chat- that kind of self taught😅
While it's not that extreme for most of you- a lot of the "self-taught" myth is a result of ecosystem. Someone said ok to that Sinclair/Commodore 64/Raspberry Pi, you were in an ecosystem where you or someone knew to start with Forrest Mims. Sure you did the work- but had access.
(Don't "not all" me, this isn't about you)
If you don't have that kind of access, if you don't know *anyone*, you are easy to exploit. Not dumb, not foolish- you just lack the information you need to protect yourself. Some Black folks looking to get into tech are being exploited.
If you don't have that kind of access, if you don't know *anyone*, you are easy to exploit. Not dumb, not foolish- you just lack the information you need to protect yourself. Some Black folks looking to get into tech are being exploited.
The urge is to help- and we should, but often the information we have, the path we followed- may just not apply. They're going to be up against different issues. Don't be judgemental, don't assume they can "just teach themselves" the way our self-created mythos imagines we did.
Help when you can- always step up. In my experience, advice means very little compared to access- "talk to this person, tell them I sent you". My advice may be useless outside my ecosystem- but my vouching for someone can open doors, it may be the same for you.
But most of all remember no one ever "taught themselves" anything without some sort of access to material and people to learn from. Not everyone has that, do what you can to make sure they get it without assumptions, judgement, or promises about how easy it will be for others.
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