Ask HN: Recommendation for the mom of a near-college-aged “tech geared” student?
My daughter will graduate next year and, having always been technically inclined, has indicated that she would like to pursue a career in some aspect of the technical industry. I think this is wonderful.
However, having recognized the importance of your industry tragically late I feel like I am letting her down when she wants to discuss specifics, i.e. What do I think about the future of AI, which programming languages will remain relevant etc.
I've started to regularly read here (often with a search page pulled up to research some of the terminology) and have begun subscribing to newsletters etc, but I'm wondering if anyone resources or pages they would recommend to help me better educate myself in her chosen field of interest. I am not seeking to be an expert, but I would love to be a somewhat informed sounding board as she switches into adulthood.
88 comments
[ 0.23 ms ] story [ 169 ms ] threadIf she is attending University, tell her to get involved on the campus life since things are opening back up, Hackathons are a great way to see if what/if anything takes your interest and how the collaboration process with a team actually works.
There is an idealized version of it, something I think we call tech-porn that acts as a brochure for every CompSci program with an intern and basic photoshop skills will show as what awaits a student, one that makes you think that things are all done form chic looking co-working space with baristas and fruit-smoothie machines everywhere. This is a very poor representation of what actually awaits anyone that is actually building anything that matters (read: not FAANG).
The reality is much more gritty and crude, if it's a 24 hour Hackathon like most I've attended are they're filled with red-eyed nerds and empty pizza boxes and half-filled Red Bull cans everywhere and a rather 'ripe' BO smell in the air that makes it clear that this is a grueling albeit innovative and creative space that you're either into, or you are not. There is no in between, and if you're paying for a University degree you better be into otherwise it will be a large waste of time and money, and bootcamps may be a better option if you just want to 'dip your toes.'
The prizes are not really the point of hackthons, although somewhat nice since they can lead to paid internships, what is the point is the exhilaration that gets you hooked into making something that moves you and that you can bring into the World with like-minded colleagues.
My personal 2c is at that age super high level advice on "how to learn" is going to be more useful than "what programming language is best". A lot can change in 4 years and it's better to set your daughter up to succeed at building a solid base of knowledge that will be adaptable to whatever trend is popular 4 years, or even a decade out, rather than take even an extremely well informed person's guess as gospel.
your role can be more about supporting her curiosity and ensuring she doesn't over-index on any one piece of advice.
ps: glad you're asking this question. i shoe-horned myself into a finance role bc that's what my dad did and i lacked awareness to wonder what i wanted to do
What mattered:
- personal projects. Those can be anything from a game to a database engine, in any language too. They show personal investment in the field, not just money-driven career choice.
- enthusiasm for (new) tech. A "C expert" that will only do C (and often very specific stuff in C) is in a very narrower niche than someone who just wants to learn stuff and have fun. There is some justifiable verticality (front end, back end, database, network, surely AI nowadays), but limiting oneself by language, framework,... just means you'll be obsolete in 4 yrs.
- interpersonal skills. Programming is, as any job, at least 30% communication. If colleagues, bosses, clients like you you'll be a much more valuable team member. This does include NOT being a people-pleaser, and NOT hiding failures/issues.
Anyone who had of 3 of these stayed with us. Tech knowledge can always be acquired... actually, always has to be acquired, so doesn't matter that much once you've proven you can indeed imbibe it.
Some of today's most interesting and exciting "technical" challenges have their roots in many disciplines. Cybersecurity can be tackled from a full range of perspectives, from the highly technical (e.g. cryptography) to traditionally non-technical disciplines like law, public policy, and design. The kind of deep thought our world needs on things like AI and ML needs people who are just as informed about the social sciences, psychology, philosophy, and economics as they are about computer science. Our ongoing debates about issues like content moderation or digital privacy need folks who understand how to think about people, including those who are at risk and vulnerable, and then translate that knowledge into the language of engineers.
And even though we've made progress on this front, our governments, courts, and legislatures are still running on a deficit of knowledge about tech, which is a whole different ballgame. (I'd encourage reading Bruce Schneier's site on public interest technology if you're interested: https://public-interest-tech.com/)
All this is to say: if your daughter wants to go the hardcore tech route and loves solving CS or software engineering challenges, more power to her! But I also hope that she doesn't feel limited or boxed in by the traditional definitions of the discipline.
That said, I think for many this forum is actually the place to learn about the industry. It’s too broad an industry to find more specifics without knowing her interests. Does she like startups? Does she care more about the business side? Financial tech? AI? App development? Does she not know?
This site is honestly a great mixed aggregator of other sites. Find interesting ones and see the other posts. She’s in HS so the bar is low on deep technical knowledge and expectations. She should probably focus less on intense research topics unless she has an actual interest in a more academic side (simply because academic research is less approachable to someone without much academic experience).
If she doesn’t have an answer to those questions, I would say she just start googling things that pique curiosity. “How does X work” is how I started. That’s how I learned which buzzwords and jargon mattered to me. Probably more approachable for a younger person earlier on the journey.
Here are some newsletters I follow. My interests skew towards business.
Bits About Money: https://bam.kalzumeus.com/
Stratechery: https://stratechery.com/
She may also appreciate other women in tech, since it can be hard for women. Rachel is pretty popular: https://rachelbythebay.com/
I generally agree with your post but I would argue that the content on this site is likely (though not always) to be too advanced to hold the interest of an average HS graduate. But to the right person it's practically an institution.
I guess I'm just cautioning that resources recommendations would probably work best when tailored appropriately for knowledge and skill levels.
We have tons of short courses from great providers. My favorite is one which pairs teenagers like your daughter 1:1 with a postdoc at Cambridge University on a two week project e.g. creating an AI for categorizing blog posts. At the end of the two weeks your daughter gets a reference from that same postdoc on their enthusiasm, aptitude and preparedness for that technical subject. You find that if you and your daughter go through 2 or 3 such programs together the process of selecting among them and the references you get from academics give you a ton of context that genuinely prepares you both for the bewildering world of technical professional and academic careers.
Last year I remember in particular we helped one kid navigate the maze of "Computer Science vs Videogame Design vs Computer Art vs Chemical Engineering" this exact way. It was great to see his parents learn all about the nuances of the videogame business and careers in CS despite having a Chemical Engineering background.
Do consider reaching out and also checking out our social media where we talk about situations exactly like yours all the time.
Disclaimer: I'm a co-founder - my wife is the founder of that marketplace.
If she goes that route, there are many different types of work. Writing software is the obvious one, but there’s technical project management, engineering management, etc. Again, depends on where her interest lies.
One great thing about being a woman in tech is that it offers great job security and growth potential. For whatever reason there is a real dearth of women in the field, so if she’s good, she’ll be highly sought after.
When I was at University the database courses (and the lecturers themselves) were very abstract and so excruciating boring that I leaned almost nothing. Courses in languages like C and machine code were much more fun.
But, decades later I find myself doing SQL every day, and despite having a compsci degree I’m effectively self-taught in all the languages I actually use.
FWIW, my strong advice for a parent, new to the industry, of a woman, is: do NOT get try to get caught up in the tech side of things, but instead attend to the human and culture side.
There are great things about tech and so many more women doing well these days but the awful truth is also that the tech industry can be uniquely terrible- there aren't enough adjectives- for women. For men, too, of course but the industry continues to be dominated by misogynists.
I follow (terrible term) hundreds of brave tech women on twitter...and hearing (virtually) their voices and stories has been the most important education of my life.
Learn that side. And be there for your daughter to guide and support and provide human perspective when she encounters the dregs that this industry harbors.
Best wishes.
The tech industry can be strange for women. I’ve often been the only woman in a meeting, for example. And as an interviewer at one company it was disheartening to see how few women applied for dev jobs. (That wasn’t a problem at my previous job, which was a startup with an education focus and attracted many female dev candidates.)
Some women find being in that minority hard, I think. I’ve never particularly minded, though I still notice it sometimes. E.g. I was in a meeting where someone made a very mildly risqué joke about a sunbathing neighbour and was obviously embarrassed when he looked at me and thought through the fact a woman was in the room. But it was mildly risqué, quite funny, gentle humour and not bothersome at all.
I have been careful when looking for jobs to emphasise that culture is important to me. I don’t want to work places where people play silly, back stabbing games. The closest I’ve come to a bad experience was working with a recruiter, who I liked a lot, who told me about a company and then hesitated. I prodded gently because he’d been excited about this company and thought I’d find the work interesting, but seemed reluctant to send me. After a while, he told me that he didn’t want to send me because the last two women he’d sent had a bad time and he didn’t want that to happen again. It was horrible to realise there was a local company treating female devs so badly, but it was also kind of the recruiter to have that awkward conversation with me. And, frankly, I’m happy to avoid the unpleasant bits of the industry.
Overall, I find I have a lot in common with the men I work with and have rarely felt like I was treated differently because of being a woman. But I have also made an effort to work in smaller companies and prioritised things like a collaborative company culture. There are icky companies in the industry still and I’m glad that I haven’t ended up in one of them.
I do think there’s value in thinking through (and discussing) strategies to use when facing discrimination or harassment. That’s something young women struggle with, because having your bum grabbed in public is just so bizarre. It’s hard to know what to do. But I would be sad if those discussions left young women feeling worried and reluctant to do things. I feel much the same about cautioning girls about the tech industry — we can spend too much time talking about the companies that are awful, when there are many welcoming companies that are wonderful places to work.
Apologies for the wall of text. As the thread is about young women going into tech, it seemed worth presenting a different experience and perspective. Hopefully it will prove useful (or even encouraging) to someone.
Best of luck to your children and to the OP’s daughter.
When the girls were little and I would get to spend time reading to them, when we were reading stories with a male protangonist I always changed the pronouns to female. It made it a different story (at least for me!).
We are all human, but we are all uniquely human, and more stories from different voices and perspectives will create more opportunities and resonance for all.
In terms of the specifics- agree completely that creating a psychic boogeyman serves no one's interest. My likely not-achieved goal was just to point the mom to areas where it seemed a mom's perspective could be usefully informed. Especially being able to coach with concrete examples around exactly the scenario you describe- interesting work but difficult/problematic culture. How to navigate?
In any event, cheers and thank you again.
An amazing coworker at a previous job worked with this group, but there should be similar ones around the world: https://mywit.org/about-women-in-technology/
Someone actively working in the industry can provide a valuable perspective and advice, and start building a professional network.
Alternately, there are various ACM and IEEE organizations, although I've heard both vary in quality and usefulness from chapter to chapter (or SIG to SIG). Maybe an IEEE or ACM subscription or membership, if financially feasible? Spectrum and Communications (the main monthly magazines of the organizations, respectively) tend to be a nice mix between survey and detail, so could provide talking points and research focus for a month.
This is the last thing you need to worry about.
Learning French won't be very helpful if you later need to learn Korean, but programming languages are not like that. It's easy to switch programming languages.
The key is learning how to write code in any general-purpose useful programming language.
Python is generally considered a good language that is used in industry and also happens to be beginner-friendly, so start there.
Ditto for both Ruby and Javascript. A big part of each of these being "easy to learn" is the setup time of the toolchain; for all of them (and particularly Ruby and Python) the interactive consoles are fantastic learning environments... and come pre-installed on Mac, so you have zero time trying to figure out how to get started :)
Play is the most effective way to learn (outside of classes; although I'd argue good play teaches more than classes).
Gonna show my colors here: Ruby has an advantage in "playing to learn" through SonicPi. It's hands-down the shortest distance between "learned something" and "have something to show for it", which makes it a fantastic way to play.
That said - AFAICT the driving, and differentiating factor, between success and failure in "learning to code" is having something you want to do with it. If that's ML/data processing, go with Python. If that's interactivity in a browser, that's JS. If that's a full-on website, it's Ruby.
That _also_ said - I would also strongly recommend that once she's reached comfort with one language, to pretty much immediately start learning another. Each language teaches different things, and learning what each to teach makes you a drastically better programmer overall. And, the number one blocker I've seen to seniority as a programmer is willingness to learn and work in other languages. The earlier you can "break the seal" on that, the better.
However, learning a second human language makes it easier to learn a third (or fourth, or fifth…), the earlier the better. Completely anecdotal, but my Hungarian-Romanian colleagues all picked up German and/or English extremely quickly and completely. Growing up speaking two completely different languages must have something to do with it.
It's very much like communicating in a foreign language with only a basic phrase book. I'd like to at least be able to speak pidgin.
Although they can not provide detailed and expert level guidance, I still turn to them for career and life advice. I try to explain anything I am working on at a level that they can understand, but even then, I have to weigh their guidance against the fact they do not share the same context as me or someone in the field. It came a bit faster than both they and I expected, but I think all of us have realized we reached a point where they can't provide all the guidance I need and that it is on me to find mentors and decide the path that is best for me.
* The Pattern on the Stone: The Simple Ideas That Make Computers Work by Danny Hillis
* D is for Digital: What a Well-Informed Person Should Know About Computers and Communications by Brian W. Kernighan (I think his Understanding the Digital World is probably a retitled newer edition of this book?)
* Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software by Charles Petzold
All three of these authors have had interesting and prominent careers in computing. None of these books are exactly on-point in terms of directly addressing careers, but all of them should help you understand more of the substance of what your daughter is working on and the context for other discussions you encounter.
I don't know all of the professional orgs for women, but as a Black person, I am a member of several orgs, like /dev/color, which create safe spaces for us as underrepresented people to ask candid questions and pool experience.
That said, I hope you find it interesting to engage with the tech world, which may help you continue to relate to her as she gets into the career. My parents start dozing when I tell them what's up in my professional life, haha. Even my wife, who is tech-adjacent, has limited patience for engineering talk.
I hope I am not being too presumptuous but I read this question as evidence of a mom that doesn't want to let her daughter go. She is going to have her own life and interests. She will make friends who are experts in whatever niche she chooses and will not be let down just because you can't suddenly be an expert in her field.
I think it's great you are reading HN and talking to her etc. But my suggestion is to NOT try so hard to be her peer, because that is likely to push her away.
My suggestion is that if you want a solid relationship with your daughter then maybe take some pressure off of it by making more friends.
But let me break this down a bit more concretely. The question you actually asked is pretty much impossible to answer. As I said, there are numerous subfields in technology. For you to "better educate yourself in her chosen field" you would need to actually know what she was studying. Her field could turn out to be databases, or AI, or geographic information systems, or one of literally hundreds of different technology-related careers. So for you to really be able to advise her in these areas.. I think the only way to do that would be something like this:
* (assuming she goes for CS) wait 2 years for her to finish her general education requirements and start digging into the computer science
* find out exactly what classes she is taking
* get the textbooks for those classes
Now, how do you think she would feel if she found out you had bought the exact textbook she used for her class?
Suppose that you _were_ an expert in all matter of technology. The main point would be the same. She needs to make her own decisions about what field to go into. And she doesn't need her parent to make suggestions or tell her what is trending.
But overall I am not trying to fault you. I am trying to help you. I believe your are looking to maintain a relationship with your daughter. Or at the very least, help her make decisions. You cannot help her if you are not able to maintain boundaries and are creeping her out. As I said, that will push her away, and make it more difficult for you to give her advice. I believe that you are already overstepping your boundaries.
If she is graduating next year, then the time to start making decisions for herself has long past. If she is not good a making decisions or researching, focus on those general skills. But for you to be so involved into her decisions or so keen to be an expert in her field (which again, has not yet been chosen) is interfering with her development and as I said, _will_ push her away.
EDIT: thinking about this more, I actually think your question would make sense if she was like 7-9 years old and you had some years to help dig into software development or whatever with her. But if we are talking about late teens, there is no way you are going to be able to help her the way you think in a short time, and as I said, she is past the point in her development where that approach is appropriate.
Hilariously, I usually had the opposite problem where I'd slap something together haphazardly by following an internet tutorial (with 0 actually understanding of what is going on) and my dad would be visibly proud and happy with the cool demo even when I tell him that I just downloaded X and copy-pasted Y and Z.
[1] unless you really want to answer the "what is the best language?" question as most of us view (Learn these top 5 X_technologies in 2022) articles as superficial bs. I see from your other comments that this might not be what you really meant. Which is fine. It is just funny seeing people triggered by it lool (I guess I also kinda was). I just wanted to elaborate that we have our own hypes, trends, and tabloid-like articles that answer questions akin to "You need to know about these top 5 hospitals in NY" or "Surgeons who use x-surgical-tool are paid the highest"
As famously demonstrated by the Dropbox example, this community is not any more able to answer these questions than any random google search.
Later she may decide to learn a language that is closer to the machine and squeeze more performance, or become enlighten and learn a more esoteric language.
There are things i can think of that you may try:
1. Try and do something techy yourself. Getting your own hands dirty will give you much better insights into what she’s getting into. Something that’s useful to you. I don’t know what you’re into, but if you have a hobby, it’s usually easy to find an idea for a tool that will help with that hobby. Just make sure you don’t try and take her place or something.
2. Probably better: Ask HER, if she could make something useful to you, or even better for your whole family / community. You may go for something a little more complicated, cause she’ll have more time to devote to this. IoT projects are very rewarding and touch a lot of aspect of tech. Home automation projects are great, like connected lightbulbs that respond to voice or if you have emails. Small games like wordle are cool too. Or things like community websites. When I was 18 (22 years ago!), I built a message board for me and my friends. It was really fun and then i could customize it for things we liked to do, like rating movies, and plan holidays. We used it for years, and only stopped when the ISP stopped supported the backend tech I was using.
In any case, the sooner she starts the better off she’ll be. The first thing is to pick up anything: a book or a tutorial online, and give it a shot.
Good luck, and have fun!!
Most important is to find something she likes to do.
Tech is only a tool to enable things to happen. When you do woodworking, it’s because you like nice furniture, not nice chisels.
Some people just like chiseling.
Some woodworkers like their product, others like the process. Recognizing the things that resonate with you is key.
Just being someone who has actually built anything at all immediately puts you in the top 50% of grads.
If she's interested in electronics, feel free to shoot us an email (link in bio) and I can set you up with a free USB Oscilloscope (debugging hardware for analog circuits).
In particular have her browse https://learn.adafruit.com/ to look for stuff that interests her
My mom inspired all of my early learning about computing, officially starting at age 9 when she brought me to Barnes & Noble to get the RedHat Linux book because our internet was too slow to download the full OS. Her only contingency was that I actually read the book and pay for it with my own money. She taught me the value of a dollar and how to stick with something, even if it's hard. She chewed my teachers out when they'd say I was "wasting time" on computers, she bit back when I got into video gaming that invited disingenuous allusions from teachers about Columbine, and she listened when I'd babble on about what I did or learned.
My mom isn't good with computers at all, but my #1 champion when it came to chasing my dreams.
Offer to drive the kids somewhere to like minded people, maker spaces and such, museums or exhibitions. Lookout for possible events like lectures, presentations, meetups, evening schools, summer courses. Help to find good deals on some used equipment and materials (whatever that might be) and try to provide some space to work on. Help to create financial support for tools and materials, even if it is just arranging for mowing the neighbour's lawn so that they can earn the required money.
Like a lot of other folks have already posted, I was also the weird sort of kid that spent time "playing on the computer" and talking about what I'd learned and asking about "modems" and "BBSs" or "the Internet". My parents would listen, supported getting an extra phone line to run my own BBS, would drive me places to support my hardware and books habits--and that all was important to continuing to explore this niche.
As a parent, well, I have an interesting mirror experience. My oldest daughter got really into basketball. This is absolutely inexplicable to me, because neither I nor my wife ever played, nor did we ever watch a basketball game at home before her interest developed. (Schools these days, exposing children to strange new ideas!) I knew the basics (orange sphere through orange ring = points; double dribbling and traveling are bad; no tackling) but really had no interest. But we've enabled her interest: let her join the school team, signed her up for summer camps or 3-on-3 leagues, encouraged her to practice in the driveway (oh, yeah, bought a hoop for the driveway), have watched or taken her to college women's games.
She still knows more about the game than I do. Even with years of watching, "volunteering" for scorebook duty at some of her home games, talking with coaches and refs, there are still a lot of subtleties of the game that escape me. But it's okay. She plays, she enjoys it, and she knows her parents support her strange, strange interest.
Even if you don't really, completely "get it" as a parent, supporting and enabling ("enabler" is such a good word here) is worth a lot.
I teach college-age girls, and they universally report that it is very hard for them being women in this field. They report to me that they find solidarity among other women, and SWE is one place that helps build exactly that support. Also consider attending the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing: https://ghc.anitab.org. We have a scholarship to send students there every year and they enjoy it.
Really, it doesn't matter what the best choice today is that much - everything helps with everything else. Just starting something today matters. My best tech experience from highschool years was doing something noone around me knew about or even could recommend even though I grew up with techy father - but it happened by finding the right community online and just trying. On the other hand I got some well meaning guidance from my mom that just wasn't realistic. I don't mean that to discourage you from getting informed - just saying that you can do so much more to help in other ways: providing resources, finding ways to look for answers, looking for local groups, saying "you want to do X - great, try it, show me what's cool about it!".
Also watch out with reading too much HN or other sources. Each one of us is really biased in what we do and some groups are massively underrepresented here. For example the 9-5 consultants who are just as much a part of the industry.
Edit: Also keep in mind there's lots of tech/other crossover areas where you can learn tech+something at the same time. For example https://rosalind.info/ for bioinformatics, https://www.cryptopals.com/ for cryptography, automatic stock trading challenges that I can't recall the name of right now, etc.
Edit 2: "I feel like I am letting her down when she wants to discuss specifics, i.e. What do I think about the future of AI, which programming languages will remain relevant etc." - You're not! If she's serious about this direction, she'll leave you far behind in what she knows - and that's great! You can still help her help herself. You found places to improve your own knowledge, so you know how to keep learning :-) Also you don't need to know the answers for a good conversation - good questions will do: What does she think of the ai? Why? What's currently missing? Is anyone talking/blogging about solving it? What will it change? Who will benefit? What's the next challenge?