Career Thoughts

Last Friday, I was surprised with a relatively empty work email queue and no Teams chat messages. This is odd as I collaborate with a worldwide team based in Asia and Europe. I found out some teams get a company holiday known as Good Friday while the US team does not. It made me think about workplace norms that can vary by country. For example, in some countries it is standard to place a profile photo on a resume. In other countries, it is standard to get an official document certifying that one worked for a company when verifying skills and years of experience. Even with increasing globalization, many places still conform to a variety of unique practices that may not be found anywhere else.

My Filipino mom migrated to the United States after marrying my American dad. My dad, knowing she wanted rice, purchased instant rice and showed her how to make it in the microwave. My mom asked where the rice cooker was and my dad did not have one. My mom did not have a rice cooker for several weeks. Fortunately, she befriended another Filipino woman who showed her where the Asian store was. Years later, I was starting kindergarten and my mom began packing a lunch that resembled a bento box. My dad convinced my mom to switch to a standard sandwich as he was concerned that I would be bullied for having a ‘different’ lunch. Years later, I fondly think about these stories and have learned to appreciate the variety of cultural norms that exist in our society.

Capstone Update

When it comes to development, there are variety of ways to build the same product. Last week, I spent some time researching how to structure the frontend of my React site and there were many different opinions amongst the guides I reviewed. I decided to go with having a Components folder for individual pieces and a Pages folder that would contain components pertaining to the corresponding web pages. I also implemented frontend routing using react-router with multiple pages. I had to make another design decision here. React can be used for single page applications. I could go page to page dynamically without reloading. While the scope of our project could use this implementation, I did not see some elements being used as frequently to take advantage of being a single page implementation. In addition, some of my team members are new to React and I think it would be better to introduce them to it in a way that would resemble foundational web development. Having separation of concerns with different pages would allow team members to work on individual pages without impacting other portions of the website. I am sharing the structure of key parts of frontend below:

Personal Update

I looked at the weather report a week ago and noticed that snow was in the forecast for Portland, Oregon. I told my boyfriend and he laughed and said it would not snow in April. Well, I woke up Monday morning to see a white blanket of snow out the window. I work from home so snow was not a big concern.  I admired the novelty of this unusual weather event. Of course, like everyone else, I went outside and took a picture of the snow.