Bullying almost made I’m not become in a programmer

My relationship with coding was not always all that good since the beginning. I remember that I chose my degree in 5 minutes (a story for another occasion), so I knew nothing about the subject.

So, imagine me, on the first day at the university, without any background about programming languages or logic. When I came across the surprise that I was in a classroom of twenty students, of which only four were women. And to make it worse, it looked like everyone already has programmed its first “Facebook” and I did not even know what was an “if”

…Did we must take an introductory course to take the introductory course and nobody told me?

It should be emphasized that I was the easiest target to bully in my classroom.

1. I was a girl in engineering.
2. I didn’t know anything about programming.
3. I was foreign (I had to move out to study my career).
4. I was too short (I measure just 150 cm).

Thus, my constant harassment began from asking me if I knew how to turn on a computer (because they thought, for some strange reason, that we didn’t have computers in my town), even to make fun of it because I didn’t know why my “Hello world” didn’t run, (It was for the ;).

Anyway, I felt very overwhelmed in my first semester, because things were not going as I thought they would be. It took me a full class to finish a program when my classmates had already done five; in spite of that I loved to code; I felt a giant satisfaction every time my code ran … but that didn’t keep me from feeling that I wasn’t good enough.

When the semester was over, I sat in my room and wondered if it was worth so much stress. It crossed my mind to return defeated to my home with my parents, make the excuse that I had not liked the university and choose a new one that was not so far from my house.

However, something stopped me: I remember saying to myself: “You cannot compare yourself with them because we are not equal” … and yes, I could not compare myself with anyone in my career because I had never programmed before in my life. So I lowered my expectations and set a goal that I could reach.

“I want to be the best woman programmer who has entered my generation without experience and is foreign.”

Obviously, I only had one competitor in that race: myself.

I returned to the next semester with my new attitude, my new goals, I learned to be a “mean” with the people who deserved it, to answer the insults with education (or ignore them) … and the rest is history.

Six years later, with a finished career, a three-year work experience programming and endless silent mouths, I have achieved it. I don’t have a magic secret to bullying other than: you have to believe in yourself and not let the comments of others make you abandon what makes you happy.

If I had abandoned the pressure I would not be here.