***Editor’s Note: The “I Became An Engineer” blog runs every Friday. To share your story email jennifer.delaosa@advantagemedia.com***
This week’s story comes to us from ECN reader Kathy Herring Hayashi. She is the Vice Chair of the 2018 IEEE Women in Engineering International Leadership Conference (WIE ILC) and currently works at Qualcomm Incorporated in San Diego, analyzing and optimizing semiconductor workflows in large-scale compute environments.
As a kid, I loved crafts and one of my favorite toys was a ThingMaker that made creative and colorful flowers. You would pour the Plastigoop into the mold, heat it, and create a variety of crafts. Flowers were fun.
Fast forward to college. At the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), I took an introduction to Computer Science called EECS 61. One of the assignments was to use turtle graphic calls to create images. Little did I know that this snippet of code would change my life: BEGIN (*PETAL*) TURN (-45); ARC; TURN (90); ARC, TURN (135); END; (*PETAL*). It drew a flower.
Drawing that flower allowed you to interact with the computer. It was cause and effect with immediate results. You could run the commands over and over without penalty, until it became just like you wanted it, each time providing visual feedback on how close you were to the goal. From there, these simple commands that drew a flower were used to further demonstrate more advanced programming concepts, such as scope and nested procedures. It was always a puzzle to be solved, and with enough patience and energy, could be solved. But the most important thing was that it was fun—and I liked flowers.
At the lab at UCSD, some of the proctors came in on roller skates as they went from computer to computer to help us. They enjoyed programming and wanted us to share that joy of programming. I liked the class so much, I ended up becoming one of the class tutors, and I too often showed up in the roller skates I used to get around campus.
After two years in college, I had to pick a major. When they asked me which classes I enjoyed the most, I said, “Well, I really like making flowers in EECS 61.” The counselors immediately signed me up for a CompSci major.
In those days, we didn’t have internship programs, summer co-ops, STEM outreach (all of which I strongly recommend today). The only thing that I knew about programming was from class, but there was something there that I really liked. And it did indeed bring me to the right major. I loved my engineering and computer science classes and graduated from Revelle College at UCSD in four years.
My first job out of college was as a software engineer in a hardware engineering group that designed computer chips. There, we would develop graphical programs for engineering designs in the era of display workstations. These included visualizations and advanced artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms for interactive placement tools, routing algorithms, and graphical layout languages. Those flowers now turned into digital designs and again led me to more advanced concepts, but I was still having fun. I went on to design two engineering blocks on one of the first mainframes on a chip using those engineering tools that I had helped to create.
I’ve stayed in San Diego ever since college and continue to be one of those women in tech. Although I don’t use roller skates anymore, I still hope to inspire those interested in tech by supporting IEEE and the IEEE WIE Affinity Group, whose goals are to inspire, engage, and promote women in technology, and Vice Chair of the 2018 IEEE WIE ILC that occurred May 21-22 in San Jose, California. We want women to reaffirm or rediscover the passion that got them into technology in the first place. When you find that passion, it’s no longer work. For you, it may not be drawing flowers, but I hope you continue to find that spark of technology that inspires you.
Read other stories, here:
- A Note From The Editor: An Engineer’s Story
- I Became An Engineer: Despite Being Bad At Math
- I Became An Engineer: Because Of MacGyver And Comfortable Clothes
- I Became An Engineer: Because Of A Small FM Radio
- I Became An Engineer: Because Of A Model Airplane Contest
- I Became An Engineer: Because I Loved LEGOs And Tinkertoys
- I Became An Engineer: Because Of A Magazine Ad
- I Became An Engineer: Because I Grew Up In Kenya
- I Became An Engineer: So I Wouldn’t Have To Go To Vietnam
- I Became An Engineer: By Just Being Myself
- I Became An Engineer: Because Of Sci-Fi Novels
- I Became An Engineer: Because Of A Watch
- I Became An Engineer: Because I Couldn’t Stop Tinkering
- I Became An Engineer: By Studying The Fundamentals
- I Became An Engineer: Because Of A 1930s Vintage Radio
- I Became An Engineer: Because Of Microscope Modifications
- I Became An Engineer: Because I Couldn’t Be An Astronaut
- I Became An Engineer: Because I Kept Asking “Why?”
- I Became An Engineer: Because Of Christmas Lights
- I Became An Engineer: Because Of Star Trek (Specifically Montgomery Scott)
- I Became An Engineer: Because No One Was Hiring Shoe Salesmen
- I Became An Engineer: Because Of A Book (And My Mom)
- I Became An Engineer: Because Of An Evil Mastermind
