Finding
out I got into Summer of Code 2014 was a huge surprise. Seriously, I was not
expecting it. I just thought the entire program was simply too awesome for me
and there was little chance that the mentors of Astropy would 'deem me worthy'
to write code for them. A large part of the community bonding period has been spent
with my coming to terms with the fact that I got in and that people think that I can do this. I'm not saying I suffer from under-confidence in general,
but when it comes to computer science and programming, I naturally assume so
many people are better and deserving than me. I might have a case of the
imposter syndrome and I haven't been very sure on how to fix it.
Yes, I'm a woman in Computer Science and a lot of the time I feel like I don't belong. I'm not sure why in my situation it's confined to my programming abilities either. I'm a Physics and Computer Science double major and I've never, ever felt out of place in any of my Physics or Math classes - it's only when I think about my place in the programming world that I feel like I don't belong. So I'm trying to change this attitude about myself and finding out I got into GSoC has been crucial to the process. I've almost convinced myself that hey, there isn't just one kind of programmer - there IS a place for me in the community. I won't say that I'm over my doubts yet but I do think I'll be a stronger and more confident programmer by the end of the summer.
Yes, I'm a woman in Computer Science and a lot of the time I feel like I don't belong. I'm not sure why in my situation it's confined to my programming abilities either. I'm a Physics and Computer Science double major and I've never, ever felt out of place in any of my Physics or Math classes - it's only when I think about my place in the programming world that I feel like I don't belong. So I'm trying to change this attitude about myself and finding out I got into GSoC has been crucial to the process. I've almost convinced myself that hey, there isn't just one kind of programmer - there IS a place for me in the community. I won't say that I'm over my doubts yet but I do think I'll be a stronger and more confident programmer by the end of the summer.
Now moving on to happier, more GSoC/technical thoughts - I am ridiculously excited for this summer! So my project involves working on the WCS Axes framework for plotting astronomical images (possibly too many technical sounding terms?) of which a basic implementation already exists. My role basically involves writing documentation and tests and once that's done, adding extra features to it. So far I feel like my project is on track. I did a Google Hangout with my project mentors on Wednesday to discuss what I should be doing before May 19th and adjusting the project timeline for the first two weeks. I have some tasks lined up to do from now until next week, such as explore the existing WCS Axes code, learn how to use Sphinx to build docs and try to set up different Python environments. I've already experimented with iPython notebooks, (which I knew nothing about before this project) and they are a lot of fun to work with!
That's all I have to say for now. Let the coding begin!
