Why I Chose to Pursue CS and Programming

Larissa Nguyen is a senior studying Computer Science at Yale University and a cofounder of Impactful.

Spoiler alert: it has little to do with CS concepts and programming itself.

I love problem-solving. I love being able to build something myself. I love programming and CS for many of the same reasons most of us love it. But none of these are the reason why I’m still pursuing a career in tech. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m deeply in love with a lot of things: writing, tutoring, community organizing, public policy and social dancing. I’m not inherently better at coding than these other interests, either. After all, I started coding in college whereas I began these other interests years beforehand. (I also firmly believe in growth mindset and reject the idea of natural talent.) So, what gives? Why Computer Science and why programming?

I’m neurodivergent. In short, this means that my brain is wired differently than most people. For me, my neurodivergence affects my concentration, my perceptions of time, my sleep habits, my wakefulness, my sensitivity to light, my ability to be productive on some days, and many of the basic ways I interact with the world around me. Programming and the tech industry are more accommodating to my neurodivergence than other industries, though tech still has a long way from being truly accommodating to different forms of ability.

1. Mobility

When I’m programming, all I need is my laptop and a place to put it on. This allows me to be extremely mobile. I struggle to sit or stay in one place for long periods of time. Different lighting conditions drastically affect my ability to focus. I easily get distracted by movement and sound around me. You might be thinking, Wow, she sounds real needy, huh. But really, all I need is the freedom to choose where I work.

With tech and programming, I can pick up my laptop and move to any surface with 15 inches of free space: kitchen countertops, dressers, my lap as I’m sitting in an empty stairwell, and of course, my own desk.

Many tech companies, especially the larger companies, offer a very wide variety of work stations away from one’s desk: sitting nooks, bean bags, standing stations, cafe-like setups, etc. Since working away from your desk is normalized, I feel less self-conscious about stepping away from my desk and finding a more productive place for myself. And tech workflows are set up such that you can access files and softwares from anywhere through virtual machines, git repositories, etc. so I rarely have to rely on a single desktop to have what I need.

Because I often concentrate better when I’m in motion, at work, I can take my laptop to an empty conference room, phone booth, or nook. There, I can move while working without judgment from my neurotypical coworkers. I know that I work productively in a very unique way.

2. More flexible hours

Due to my chronic illnesses, I often have trouble falling asleep before 4am and I often spend my late night hours being productive. My insomnia means that my brain is rarely, if ever, 100% ready to work at 9am and when it is, I need a serious nap by around 1pm. Although most tech companies aren’t perfectly flexible, being able to work from 10–6pm is still much better than 9–5pm.

In college, I started taking more CS classes specifically because most of them started after 10:30am.

3. Short sprints

In tech, most things are fast-paced. In intro classes, we’re expected to do sets of short programming tasks. In more advanced classes, the steps for programming a larger assignment are easily broken down into discrete, short tasks. In industry, most product teams now work in sprints, with deliverables on a day-to-day and week-to-week basis. Though this is stressful to some people, and can be stressful even for me, I appreciate juggling many smaller tasks. For me, I can lose focus on a task after an hour and a half and won’t be able to productively work on it for the rest of the day. So having many smaller tasks allows me to be motivated and productive.

4. Learning Culture

Most of all, I love being in tech because everyone is constantly learning and the field is always changing. As someone with these attention issues, I am forever curious and looking to learn. In an industry that changes every day, I never feel stuck, siloed, or bored.

All that being said, there are still many aspects of tech workplaces that I wish were more accommodating:

• I hope the industry normalizes working from home. Due to one of my chronic illnesses, I sometimes have periods of 1–3 days where I cannot be productive for various reasons. But I’m hyperfocused and hyperproductive in the preceding and following days.
• I wish nap rooms were more ubiquitous and normalized. Just like most people need to eat lunch to be productive, I sometimes need a 25-min nap to be productive because of my insomnia.

I hope tech takes more steps to normalize and accommodate diversability. But tech workflow fits my productivity style so much already, and that’s why I chose a career in tech.