Codes and Keys

We are now at the final stretch of spring quarter. I am excited but I am concerned about how much time we have left. Since this is the final blog following my journey into the computer science realm, and tracking my progress with my capstone project, I would like to leave on a good note.  All the rush around final projects, and homework to turn in for various classes, it’s good to stop and look back at my time in this program. To realize how far I have come. To realize how much I have accomplished that, had someone told me I would two years ago, I would not have believed them. Despite the stress that I might be feeling in the moment, I have realized that pushing myself has given me a new lease on life. Just like exercising your muscles, you might feel sore during and immediately after, but over time, you see growth.  I am seeing my mental growth now.

Do you know those people that you meet, they are well into their golden years and they are sharp as a tack. They do sudoku puzzles and play bridge and can remember things from 70 years ago. I have met people like this who have a better memory than I do, and I envy them. I can only hope to someday have a fraction of the same mental ability that they do.  And then I realized, it’s because they continuously use their brain. This muscle that I have dragged through the mud day after day in a law firm, I could have been exercising by learning new things each day. And that is what I’ve been doing for the last two years. Contemplating new ideas, and pushing myself to solve new problems, I have not only expanded my knowledge, but I have also in a way allowed myself to feel more alive. Well this notion is meta-, coding provides exactly this type of mental exercise with each new program that you write. It stretches your mind in each direction, and forces you to explore new corners of your brain in order to shed light on unique remedies to accomplish your goal. And if you keep your mind in a state of continuously learning, and continuously seeking out answers, you extend that much more life to your brain.

Two years ago,  I would have laughed at the idea of knowing how to build a website from scratch, or how to code an operating system in C, or how to develop a database. And I definitely would not have believed that I could learn to create a 3D VR environment that I could transfer to an Oculus headset.

And now, thinking back on my mental capacity, I realized that my burnout had turned my mind to jello. It was see-through, giggly, and bounced around everywhere.  Now that I have removed myself from that lifestyle and now learn new things each day, my mind is dense, steady, and methodical. If I keep going this route (and I’m sure the ever-evolving computer science field will keep me on my toes), I will end up like the people who stay sharp throughout the last years of their life. They say you are as young as you feel. But I’m starting to realize, that you are as young as you think.

We are spending all-nighters getting projects done, and racing to the finish line for finals, but we are also exercising our brains, and learning new things as we go. We are doing the very thing that will keep us young in the long run, and we should enjoy it in the meantime.  I do hope that our capstone project turns out the way we had hoped, and our efforts show how far we have come this quarter, but overall, I’ve been thankful for just being able to learn how to make a 3D VR simulation. Period. And this opportunity is one of a million more experiences that will push my brain to be harder, better, faster, stronger….all the ways that would make Daft Punk proud.

So take it all in, as for most of us, we are graduating soon. We didn’t just learn how to code, we also learned how to continuously exercise our minds and for some of us, re-learned how to love learning.  It doesn’t stop at graduation.  We are as young as we think, and we can stay that way for as long as we love to learn.  So good luck fellow OSU students. Stay young. Go Coding.

Also, I remembered that I promised you pictures of my dogs. Here’s Inlé and Hazel, as promised.

Coming full circle to the moment I set myself on this path to get a second degree. It’s 6 am, and I’ve been coding since 3pm the day before. I’m so tired that my body is jittery and I can’t keep my eyes open. I’m hungry and dehydrated but I dread that anything I eat or drink will come up as quick as it goes down. I eyes are heavy and the sun is coming up. My two dogs, Inlé and Hazel, are making those dramatic quiet whining noises when they are tired of my crap and they want me stop staring at evil rectangles, whether it be my desktop computer, my phone, or my tablet. They hate all rectangles that take my attention away from them for so long.

They say your body is a temple. Generally and philosophically speaking, I mean.  But society expects you to treat your brain like a diesel engine, driving miles before you are allowed to give yourself  a break. American exceptionalism ties our work ethic to our self identity, mental and emotional health be damned. We coin silly phrases like “I’ll sleep when I graduate” and collectively pretend that we are somehow immune to the constant stress of dedicating so much mental real estate to work. From 9 to 5, Monday through Friday, our brains are amusement parks filled with excel spreadsheets, shared google docs, and debugging consoles. From Friday evening to Sunday night, our brains are garbage disposals for social media platforms and Netflix originals. Somehow, we have forgotten that our brains are a part of that beautiful cathedral that we are supposed to protect.

I’ve run into a wall this week while working on the capstone project for this class and coding for other classes. I hit the wall so hard that I can feel my brain physically give up as if it no longer understands English, math, or basic logic. I step away from the evil rectangle and curl up with Hazel and Inlé on the couch. My disappointment in the lack of progress on my project is not enough to keep me from the deep sleep I’m about to enjoy. I wish I could say that this was the only time I’ve stayed up till daybreak trying to get projects finished, but unfortunately it’s been the norm as of late.

If you were to ask me about this type of marathon-work back when I was in law school, I would have made some sarcastic statement about how I love to eat, breath, sleep work.  Old me would still keep going as if I was invincible, not thinking that the long term repercussions would take me to the very place I’m sitting now.  I believed my temple was built of granite, therefore I didn’t need to rest. I made it out of law school without burnout, without crashing, and surprisingly without the need to use reading glasses. But it sucked a bit of my soul out, and retrospectively, I realized that law school was the last time in my life I could endure the toxic work-life un-balance.  I realized that my temple was also made of stained glass. When I finally accepted that I was experiencing burnout from my firm job and I decided to attend OSU’s Post-Bacc program, I promised myself that I would never allow job-related activities consume energy properly reserved for my personal priorities and self care. It’s 6am, and I’m breaking that promise as I switch from project to project, typing this blog in between.

All around the world, and throughout many cultures, temples are for coming together, celebrations, rituals, learning, seeking sanctuary. Whatever philosophical purpose you believe a temple or cathedral  serves, the general goal (not always achieved, but you get the idea) is to enrich those that enter through its doors and to maintain some sort of positive atmosphere. We metaphorically relate this to our bodies, and translate the concept to “eat right,” “exercise,” “do whatever moral things you believe are good for your body,” etc. But we often forget that our brains are one of most important pieces of that temple. When inside our own cathedral, we can see the parts of our bodies that need care, the heavy wooden doors, the stone walls, the shrines and interior architecture.  But we also need to take care of the part we can’t see from inside, too. We need to care for the part that brings everything together, that signifies who we are. We need to care for our steeples.

Our brains need sanctuary periodically. Time to decompress. Time to engage in non-productive activities. I know it’s past midterm for this quarter, and you have to get projects done whether you have self-care time or not, but keep this sentiment in mind.  Don’t feel guilty for stepping away from whatever evil rectangle has so much of your attention. There’s an empty pew waiting for you.

Have you ever spent hours trying to draft an acceptable program that will, at the very least, pass all required tests, but it’s late into the night and nothing is working? No bells and whistles, no extra flare. Just a bare bones passable program. And you can’t even accomplish that. Your eyes are tired but your body still feels like it’s connected to a live wire. You start to make concessions on what you will accept as a final product and finally realize that sleep is more important for the moment. You wake up in the morning to reluctantly review the code and you realize that the problem was easily fixable. It’s magic…as if it’s not even the same code you were working on the night before. This is infuriating but relieving. You conclude that either you were possessed by a debugging demon in the night or that you, in fact, are occasionally a dunce. 

We all go through times where we feel like the hill we climb becomes a downward escalator, and no matter how many steps we take upward, we stay relatively in the same place. Last week I spent a good day or so contemplating my choice to do computer science after seeing the capabilities of my fellow teammate and his complex coding on the fly. While a task would take me the better half of a day to figure out, it would take the student next to me a couple of minutes. I try to remind myself that we all come from different backgrounds and some students have coded most of their adult lives, but consciously knowing this doesn’t help the anxiety that builds as I edge closer to graduation.

This same fear wiggled its way into my brain this last week while trying to create the project’s asset locations and environment. Our group is creating a virtual bartender simulation for a VR headset, such as the Oculus Quest. The game will have a bar area with glasses, liquor, and other ingredients to make popular drinks, allowing the player to learn how to make drinks and track their success rate.  I had spent tutorials learning to start a project, but I still had no real idea of how to create an entire setting with nothing but basic geometric default objects within the Unity canvas. Though this took relatively little time to overcome, the learning curve for making objects “not fly off the edge of the plane” or “not fall through the floor” or “not get swallowed up by another object” proved much more difficult. By the week’s end, I had spent most of my time breaking my code instead of accomplishing anything.

With a deadline looming in the back of my head and teammates counting on me to get the environment set up, the increased pressure had a numbing effect on my learning capabilities. “It’s 2:00 AM and you’re wanting to learn what now?” said my brain. If the time it took me to learn how to simply not set the project ablaze with errors was equivalent to the amount of time it would take me to actually build the game scene, I was going to throw my RV hands in the air and take off to a real bar. It’s 5:00 somewhere, right?

In a fit of frustration, I gave up, grabbed comfort food, watched the next episode of Halo, and cuddled with my dogs. For the first time in a week, I just took a night off to myself and cleared all thoughts of the project. The next day, after procrastinating with every morning routine I could think of-breakfast, yoga, coffee, light house cleaning- I finally opened my Unity application on my computer. I scrapped the broken code from the nights prior, and started fresh. However, I realized that…my bar wasn’t falling through the floor. My glassware was staying put and not flying sideways when running the program. My objects were behaving the way I needed them to… It was as if I was in an alternate bartender dimension…Or maybe I am a variant on the run from Time Variance Authority attempting to fix my other talentless variants’ coding errors. Sorry guys, I really want Disney+ to release Loki season two already.

Long story short, I spent the next 7 hours in non-stop world building, comparing ideas from online terrane, to real life pictures of bar scenes and setups. At the end of the day (or technically the next morning), I had a full rough draft world for our bartending game to live in.  What looked like an impossible task just the night before, became clear as day with just a bit of sleep and finding out that Master Chief…just kidding. No spoilers here.

I wish I could say that I understood this concept a long time ago. But it was drowning in the tidal wave-size learning curve on how to use the Unity Engine that made me realize my ability to overcome is directly related to my point of view. When I feel discouraged or overwhelmed about learning to code in general, that I am seeing my world through the same lens as a coder who’s looked at their code for too long and just needs some good sleep. When I let my failures settle in, check in to their guest rooms, take a dip in the hot tub, and eat the free continental breakfast, they slowly lose their psychological grip on my endeverance.

This is a simple but very important lesson. Everyone starts somewhere. Everyone has a “day 1” on learning to code, and you will never be on the same timeline as anyone else. But you can achieve anything if you put your mind to it. Sometimes it just takes stepping away from the problem to give both the problem and you some room to breathe. So if your vision is blurring, your fears of  failing are blocking your ability to debug, and the lines of code are crossing together, stand up from your desk and walk away. The best thing you can do for yourself is allow time and space to clear a path for you. To provide you an unobstructed view.

What in the world is a lawyer doing learning to code? Shouldn’t I be off writing briefs and preparing for court somewhere surrounded by a wall of hardbound statutes and one of those little lady justice statutes? Yeah, I’m wondering the same thing at the moment. Not because I regret the CS program, but because I feel like I’m a stranger in a strange land. No, not in a “Martian dude starts a free love cult” kind of way. More in the sense that, if you told 2019 Kristina that she would quit her job to learn how computers do things and stuff, she would laugh at you in Bluebook citation (bonus points for getting the reference).

Imagine, it’s my first day of class. I’m still naive enough to think that I can work an 80+ hour litigation job and start OSU’s program in the evenings…or at least weekends…or really whenever I find a hour or two away from work. It’s still pre-pandemic era and the work-from-home trend hasn’t hit our collective lives just yet. I’ve gathered all my notes, CS 161’s syllabus, and I’m excited to be a student again! After all these years! My fond memories of late night studying, writing papers, spilling coffee on my faded band-teeshirts, and collecting pizza boxes on the floor. It will be like old times! And I know how to turn a Word document into a PDF so I’m sure I’m ahead of the curve. (Narrater voice: “she had no idea how behind the curve she was). I log in this “Canvas” thingy, and I see Tim Alcon’s friendly face guiding me through running my first “python” program.

Um…I’m sorry…what? What is this PyCharm you speak of, and why am I spending precious non-work hours trying to get my computer to  do something as rudimentary as print “hello world”?  What do you mean I have to “debug?” Hang on, now I need to understand what a “variable” is? Can’t I just tell my computer what I want it to do and be done with it? “Alexa, make my computer work please…”

There’s a reason why the legal field is stuck in the stone age and most equity partners require their paralegals to hand them paper printouts of pleadings, later storing them in bankers-boxes, slowing building a monstrosity of dusty old client-archives like the library in The Pagemaster. (Told you I’m old).  Lawyers, broadly speaking, are not tech savvy. We most likely grew up loving to read and write, and wanted a career that would make us lots of money that didn’t involve math or the sight of blood and needles. Needless to say, my “it’s like riding a bike” attitude towards my returning-student status deflated faster than something, something sports 2014. There’s a joke in there, go find it.

Does this sound familiar? Did you transition from a completely different field and had no idea what you got yourself into? If so, you’re my people. Nevertheless, I can look back and see how far I’ve come in terms of understanding code, accomplishing complex tasks and projects, and establishing a solid base of knowledge in how computers run, walk, talk, and how they like their tea.  If you have an Acorn computer, it prefers Earl Grey with a bit of lemon and sugar. You’re welcome.

Even though my coding knowledge has grown by leaps and bounds, I will still encounter situations where I feel absolutely overwhelmed and contemplate whether I belong amongst such amazingly smart and talented colleagues.  Just today, my capstone project group spent 3 1/2 hours peer programming where I literally watched in awe of my teammate casually vomiting fully functioning, drop-dead gorgeous code into his editor during screen share, all while providing us a smooth, coherent voiceover akin to YouTube coding tutorials. How am I worthy of the same OSU degree as is this exemplary human specimen? I don’t belong in this world of software engineering and the ever-evolving tech industry. I am a tourist.

So, there you have it. A lawyer’s journey into the tech world feels like someone took my perfectly organized trial binder, pulled me from the courtroom podium, locked me in an escape room filled with strange symbols, and the only clues to break free are written in an alien language that breaks with a single error. The confidence I once held is replaced with hours of anxiously grinding, the not-so-occasional ugly crying, and typing in frustrated circles until the code gods toss me an instance of luck. But there is something to be said about falling from grace. When we venture outside of our bubble of prior experience, we realize just how little we actually know and how incompetent we are.  It’s not the “years in the making” comfort zone that we create, from working in the same field, that shows us who we are and what we can overcome. It’s at ground zero where we timidly feel around for a life preserver, making the deliberate choice to overcome; that is what defines us.  And this program has been one of my defining moments.

Many of us are in the OSU Post-Bacc CompSci program, which means that many of us are not spring chickens. In fact, quite a number of us have already fought in the trenches of depressed job markets and inadequate salaries in our former career paths with little hope in sight. Which naturally brings me to the next topic of reasons for transitioning into computer science from prior employment—the economic struggles of professional millennials.

The legal field came with the common garden-variety prejudices, some more apparent than others depending on where you lived. A younger attorney is viewed as lacking sufficient experience. An attorney that didn’t drive a luxury car or wear top-tier expensive professional wear was viewed as struggling for income, an obvious sign of lacking success in case verdicts and settlements. Unfortunately, these prejudices still rang true in 2012, despite the poor health of the national economy. I hope that I can provide a relatable story for those who, like me, entered their professional careers at the most inopportune time: the 5 years trailing the 2008 housing crisis. 

My law career started with a burst of fast pace Seattle living—a mix of early morning commutes, lunchtime speed-walking in blazers and pumps, and prayers to the rush hour traffic gods that your shift ends before the streets fill with concert goers or Seahawks season ticket holders. While this may sound like a normal life for some, for me it was absolute culture shock. Let’s put it this way, angry community members in my little hometown complained about the installation of a “second” stop light through main street.

Fast forward to my first opportunity as an attorney in Seattle Washington, amongst posh wanna-be musicians and trust-fund children of tech-transplants. Despite the post-2008 recession still taking its toll on the economy, everyone in Seattle sparkled.  Moving to this shining city with less than 20 bucks in my bank account and an old rusted Buick Regal, I was quickly familiarized with ‘light hearted’ jokes made at my expense when other attorneys spotted my car, or my budget brown-bag lunch. And, of course, my age kept me, and other attorneys similarly situated, a healthy pace behind the “5 to 10 years experienced” lawyers who pulled out each rung of the ladder as they went. 

Being young and poor is temporary. We all expect the daily stress that comes with both, and assume that our peers will eventually take us seriously.  For previous generations this moment was fleeting, where even non-professional jobs provided buying power to purchase a house, car, and support a stay-at-home wife and 2.5 kids. However, in today’s economic environment and cost of living, such privileges are practically unheard of. As the American Dream dies a little with each generation, many of us are switching gears and investing in new, viable lifestyles and employment. Matched with the growing demand for jobs in math, science, and tech over the next decade, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and it’s obvious why many of us are here together.

We are all looking for a better life in terms of financial freedom, which amounts to at least one of the reasons for enrolling in OSU’s Post-Bacc program. The doors that this program unlocks and opens are infinite, and for those of us fighting uphill battles with income stagnation and ever-rising costs of living, it will most likely be life changing. 

Like quickly ripping off a BandAid, let’s get the uncomfortable topics out of the way. To truly understand my experience in law and why litigation work slowly devoured my soul, patience, and mostly sunny disposition, it’s helpful to keep in mind a subtle yet insidiously important distinction. I am a female attorney. I know, I know. “But Kristina, it’s 2022, that’s not a big deal anymore.” And I agree with you; but if I said that it didn’t play a large role in my distain for litigation and eventual burnout, I would be lying to you. 

The first firm I ever worked at felt like a buzzing hive in a high-rise building overlooking the Puget Sound in downtown Seattle, Washington. 700 attorneys cramped in cubicles, hoping to upgrade to a senior associate window-office with a pocket full of winning cases and a bit of luck.

However, at least 90% of promotions seemed to go to male attorneys, and the few women filling these roles arguably surpassed their colleagues on every resume bullet point. During case status meetings, strategies offered by men were at the very least entertained by senior associates and partners, while others received the corporate-sanctioned pat on the head. No one had a ‘good ol’ boys club’ sign hanging over their office door, but they might as well have. I honesty figured that, in the year 2015, microaggressions and a longer partnership track was all I had to pay for being a woman. Then I moved to Alaska. And if the cold wasn’t going to kill me, my naivety most certainly would. 

Sitting in my new bay-window office in Anchorage, Alaska, I just knew that I would finally be taken seriously! I was on a direct partner track, landing a senior associate job with my background in corporate litigation and internal investigations. Woo hoo for me right?….Nope. The first phone call I receive from opposing counsel is summarized as follows:

Ms. Montanez, I hear you’re helping Mr. so-and-so on the case. Nice to see another paralegal joining his firm. Are you married? Whenever you come to drop off the discovery responses for your boss, do stop in and chat, I’d love to give you some pointers and I’m sure my secretary can show you around town if you girls are free for lunch.

If you read that in a “creepy villain twiddling his mustache” voice, you’re not far off. And sadly, he was not an exception to how opposing counsel, colleagues, clients, or even paralegals from other firms approached me.  Thinly veiled insults like the one above were the least of my worries. I would endure screaming profanities over the phone from male clients. I was consistently berated with words that would make a pirate blush from supervising male partners. Even secretaries and staff from other firms would drop their polite tone once learning that I was, in fact, not another paralegal. This treatment became so conspicuous that a fellow male associate at my firm, of the same age and experience level, made a point to track how the same colleagues and clients treated him.  We even tried writing each other’s letters and briefs to rule out any difference in style or quality. Not surprisingly, it made no difference at all. Working sun up to sun down (or in the case of Alaska, from early dark to late dark) was taxing enough without this added bonus-the inability to prove my worth.

Which leads us to a glaring similarity between the traditional legal arena and software engineering jobs—both are male dominated fields. After coming to the conclusion that a computer science degree would best suit me for transitioning into IP, my apprehension towards the tech world started with this very thought, “Will my peers take me seriously? Or at least treat me like I belong?” Understandably, I entered OSU’s program with this mindset, bracing myself for the same antagonistic work atmosphere. And so far the majority of students that I have worked with are male. The majority of professors I’ve had are male. And of course, the majority of connections I have in the tech world are also male. You would think my experiences at OSU would follow suit. 

Expecting to read about instances of similar treatment while writing code in male-dominated coding groups? On the contrary! What I’ve actually experienced thus far is the opposite of what I prepared for.  Every person I’ve met or worked with in this program, regardless of who they are, has been refreshingly kind, respectful, cooperative, and eager to help. Working for so many years in a world where such behavior would be considered suspect or simply fake. And yes, I am fully aware that my anecdotal evidence only covers interactions within an educational sphere.  But if this is an ample survey of the quality of people entering this workforce, then my confidence in my new career path has been strengthened.  And coming from a woman attorney, I do not take it for granted.

Let’s start at the beginning. How did I end up here? Not just at OSU taking this capstone class with all of you amazingly talented people, but here…at my desk…writing several lines of code just to show my nephew I can make “num + num” spit out a correct sum in a little black terminal box.  To answer that, I have to go back to 2018; the year everything fell apart.

It’s a sunny Saturday in late June and the I’m sitting on the floor against a wall, staring at my apartment balcony. My puppy, Inlé, sits patiently with me, her head resting against my hip. I don’t know what time it is or when I last had a meal.  The perfect storm of several cases requiring trial prep at the same time has kept me at the firm for over 100 hours since this time last week. Inlé keeps glancing up at me, anxiety written all over her white furry little face.  I hear a knocking sound at my front door. It gets louder but it still does not quite register. “Kristina, you home? You’ve ignored my texts for like a month now, what’s going on?” With the scraping sound of a welcome mat being kicked aside to reveal a spare key underneath, I know I don’t have to respond. A tall man with curly red hair sporting a rainbow EDM hoodie and bright gold over-the-ear headphones dangling around his neck walks into the room. “Girl, we are all worried about you. It’s like you fell off the edge of the earth…” Then he sees me on the floor, still in my dress shirt and slacks from the prior day, Inlé’s silent plea for him to intervene. He kneels down to my level and furrows his brows, “Tina, seriously, you can’t keep going like this.” He refills Inlé’s food and water bowls, runs my dishwasher, and places a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on my lap. “Something has to change…”

Most people know the general signs of burnout.  Chronic fatigue, lack of interest in life, difficulty concentrating, and lack of sleep. Most people also know the stereotypical lackluster responses in combating burnout. The lip service given by firms during interviews on how much work-life balance is valued. That occasional “mental health” day where you still need to use what precious little PTO you have.  But what most people do not know is how long and much of a life-change is needed to fully heal from running your batteries down to empty.

Since I was 12, I wanted to be a lawyer.  A doe-eyed, small town kid mesmerized by local prosecutors conducting cross-examination and sharp-tongued, beautifully constructed rebuttals.  By 2018, my daily rituals included hours of researching and typing until my eyes glaze over pleading papers, watching all non-attorney staff leave for the day at a reasonable hour, and leaving the office only after the city had turned in for the night. It was not what I envisioned for my life. Nevertheless, day after day I re-convinced myself that if I just pushed through it, things would get better at some point. But “some point” never came. The trouble is, you do not realize when to stop until you look down and see that your fingers are singed to the bone, you look in the mirror and see your eyes hollow like dying embers, and your rice-paper lungs are perforated black. Your house is burning down with you in it.

Cue the scene where a lightbulb turns on above my head and a radical idea bursts into my thoughts. ‘I’m going to slowly die here unless I take my life in a completely different direction.  What if I quit my job and went back to college?’ For me, this was a scary thought, as I’ve never quit a job without another job already lined up. I thought back to the last time I was truly happy either studying or practicing law, and the only memories I could muster were assisting with intellectual property matters. After an extensive search into what educational background I would need to take the registration exam through the United States Patent and Trademark Office, and what patent law firm hiring partners preferred, I found that a degree in computer science would fit the bill.  And there you have it. My sights were set on a new career path. No more living at an office desk constantly drained by belligerent opposing counsel or flighty clients. I was ready for a fresh new chapter in life. With an OSU acceptance letter in hand, I walked away from my old home and let it burn to the ground.