My Brick

I started working at Google two weeks ago, amidst a charged atmosphere following the dissemination of the internal manifesto. In light of the divide that has developed, I reflected on my professional goals that I had laid out during my last years at university. Here is a piece that I wrote for one of my classes that I feel still accurately describes my goals professionally.

April 18, 2016

As a child, I was told that I was very skilled at math. I loved solving problems, and I advanced this passion throughout middle school, high school, and even at the university level. I was very lucky to be the son of two engineers, because it meant that I always got the full support to study and pursue what I liked. In my later years of high school, my parents got me my own laptop so that I could work my own projects and ideas in my free time. After reading an NPR Article, which noted that personal computers were mostly “marketed towards men and boys”, I recognize this as a hefty, if not even an unfair privilege that nudged me in the direction of computer science.

However, growing up in Silicon Valley, I never felt that what I was studying was special in any way. My high school produced many other individuals like me, so striving to be a unique individual was much harder. I felt that this environment, while conducive for producing many engineering students, was not so forgiving for students wishing to study different things. Making the change to university was a sudden culture shock, because there were actually other students studying non-engineering subjects!

At UIUC, I feel that I am very lucky because there are others studying computer science like me, which means that I’m never alone. I don’t feel embarrassed or ashamed of my social identity either, because by virtue of the large student population, there’s always someone who shares my personality and values. However, as part of the majority demographic of my major, I worry that the face of computer science and engineering is becoming too homogenous. Whether we feel that the field is gradually becoming too “Asian” or too masculine, it’s not a good sign for budding minority students looking to study computer science.

While I hold the privilege of being a male in my field, I acknowledge the struggles that women face in the computer science and technology field. My mother has worked in the technology sector for more than 20 years, and from what I can glean of her experiences, life for females has not gotten easier. There is still a pervasive sense of chauvinism and sexism present in the workspace that deters other bright females from continuing in the field. Every day, my mother would work late hours as a software developer, complaining about the constant discrimination in her workplace and the lack of other female colleagues. An intern from USA Today was quoted saying “what’s the point of trying to recruit people from underrepresented backgrounds if they’re forced to assimilate into an unwelcoming culture?” which I thought accurately summarized my mother’s situation. This was reflected in the class resume activity, as we did not field any prospective female applicants.

The discrimination that my mother faced in the technology sector reeks of a deeper problem that needs attention. Tim Cook once remarked, “We pave the sunlit path toward justice together, brick by brick.” As I move closer to graduating and entering the professional world, I want to hold myself to the highest standards, and to make a conscious effort to dismantle the crass “brogrammer” mentioned in a CNN article. I think that it’s important for all of us to not only be obsessed with what we do, but also to be ambassadors for our field. We should all strive to extend our hand to help fresher, newer minds to overcome the barriers that exist, and to enter the computer science field. I feel strongly that as a privileged individual entering the field, others should be afforded the same liberties that I’ve had growing up. My brick will be to encourage aspiring students of minorities to pursue the same passion that I’ve been chasing since I was a child, and as a rising professional, I hope to stay true to this mission.