I studied Computer Science, major in Computer Networking. IT industry especially computer programming and networking is mainly male dominating. I remember even at our networking class we had only a few girls. Ratio wise may be 1:20. Even at my first programming job, I was the only girl who was doing programming.
But these days everyone is talking about gender diversity. Recently few recruiters even mentioned to me that they would like to have a female developer in their teams. Which is very good for all the female developers out there. What’s it’s like to be doing a job in a very demanding field?
I met few people who really want to get a job in IT. I wonder what’s the main reason behind that. Not very long ago, when people were asking what I’m doing day to day and when I told them that I do computer programming for living, then again they were asking me “What exactly are you doing ?”. Not many people knew what computer programmers were doing actually. Thankfully I didn’t get that response recently, which indicates to me that people are at least aware of computer programmers.
To be really honest with you being a developer is a very hard job. We constantly need to learn and sharpen our tools. Things we are learning changing very fast. New versions are releasing every day. New languages are coming every day. Things we have learned and used become obsolete. On top of all these, there are few extra challenges for a woman. Like being a mom, being a Wife. Being a daughter. I know some of you can argue with me saying all these extra challenges are going to apply to men too. I’m not saying that men don’t have any extra challenges, they also do have in their own ways. This is simply my side of the story or basically what I’m going through at the moment.
I have seen many encouraging posts about how women are taking care of babies while they are doing their jobs. Some are politicians. Some are lectures. But the positive thing is no matter how hard or how challenging our jobs are we still keep doing our best while taking care of an infant. The year 2021 will not provide an option to put your baby in child care considering all the health issues. At least it will not be an option for me. I know there are thousands of women out there doing the same thing as I do. Taking care of the family plus doing a full-time job. That makes me feel like I’m not alone in this journey. I can learn from them. I can get inspiration from them. Together we can fulfill our dreams.
