Speaker 1: 0:00

Shout out to GoRails for sponsoring Ode to RailsConf. If you or your team wants to learn the latest Ruby on Rails features Hotwire Ruby and more check out GoRailscom. Use code ODE2RAILSCONF at checkout to get 10% off. You're listening to the Ode to RailsConf podcast, where we reminisce about our experiences at RailsConf over the years. I'm your host, david Hill, and joining me today is Michelle Yuen. Hi, michelle, thanks for joining me. Would you introduce yourself to our listeners?

Speaker 2: 0:32

Yeah, hi, thanks for having me, david. My name is Michelle Yuen. I am a software developer for the Adler Planetarium in Chicago and, as you probably can guess, working at the planetarium has been out of this world, pun intended, wow.

Speaker 1: 0:53

My son would get a big kick out of that joke.

Speaker 2: 0:57

I use that one a lot.

Speaker 1: 0:58

If you're going to work at a planetarium, you might as well lean into it and do the astronomy jokes.

Speaker 2: 1:04

Oh, yeah, yeah, all the time.

Speaker 1: 1:10

If you meet me, I'm going to have some stellar puns, wow, and they just keep on coming.

Speaker 2: 1:13

Yep, keep on going with it.

Speaker 1: 1:15

I love it.

Speaker 2: 1:20

More specifically at the planetarium. I've been working as a developer, maintaining their citizen science platform, zuniverseorg, whose main backend is built with Rails. I've attended RailsConf as a scholar as well as a guide. My first RailsConf was in 2023 in Atlanta, where I was a scholar, and my most recent RailsConf was RailsConf 2024 in Detroit, where I served as a guide, but I also want to note that I was also a guide for the most recent RubyConf in Chicago as well.

Speaker 1: 1:51

Okay, so I have a very strong fondness for the Scholar Guide Program. So, yeah, I want to dive into this a little bit. Let's start with your experience as a scholar. What was that like for you? I know, with this latest round of the Scholar Guide program, they had some kind of project they wanted the scholar to do, whether it was building an app or giving a talk, they wanted them to actually do something. Were they still doing that in 2023 with your program?

Speaker 2: 2:20

Not with my program. Specifically, I think they introduced that in the RubyConf in. Oh gosh, I can't remember San Diego, so right after me is when they introduced that project.

Speaker 1: 2:33

So then, my knowledge of the guide program at that point in time is a little bit fuzzy. Why don't you tell us a little bit about what that was like for you you being a scholar in 2023.?

Speaker 2: 2:45

I had a really wonderful time as a scholar. Just backing up some history of why I applied to be a scholar, sure, so I learned of the Scholars and Guides program from my first Ruby friend, mina Slater.

Speaker 1: 3:00

She's amazing.

Speaker 2: 3:02

Yeah, she's awesome. She encouraged me to apply to be a scholar, since the program would aid with some of my professional development goals, mainly networking, making professional connections, also getting advice on how to improve myself as a developer. This was my first RailsConf and I knew pretty much no one, and no other developer from my team was attending the conference, so the Scholars and Guides program felt like a really good opportunity to meet people in a more structured setting. So I got in as a scholar. I got paired up with my guide, gabriel Halle from Calendly. Hey, gabriel, if you're listening, I think he and I got paired up basically because we are both avid pickleball players and just big fans of the sport. Yeah, and honestly, the pairing worked out in my favor. Gabriel was amazing and such a supportive guide and really made my first RailsConf an incredible experience.

Speaker 1: 4:11

That's absolutely the outcome. I'm sure that Ruby Central is hoping for Smooth out the edges. Make this as good as possible for the fresh new attendees.

Speaker 2: 4:21

They were really great at finding pairings that really meshed well. And I think when I introduced myself with my description as soon as I got in as a scholar, I thought of all the quirky things about me. Well, I'm left-handed, I work in a planetarium, I play tennis, I play pickleball, and I guess Gabriel also said something along those lines. So we're just connections.

Speaker 1: 4:44

Nice.

Speaker 2: 4:45

I can talk about my top highlight of that conference. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, so top highlight of that conference was my lightning talk. So Gabriel and another guy in Max 2 persuaded me to really step out of my comfort zone and sign up for a lightning talk while we were at the Scholars and Guides. Welcome reception.

Speaker 2: 5:10

And honestly, I'm so glad that they gave me that extra push At that time. I think we've already mentioned this, but the Scholars and Guides program had not introduced the idea of the Scholar Conference mini capstone project yet. But they did have the lightning talk signup sheet available for scholars to get first dibs on the prime slots. It was optional and, to be frank, I came into the conference thinking well, I'm here to meet people, learn new things. I don't need to give a lightning talk. Public speaking is just not my jam. Gabe, knowing that one of my conference goals was to connect with the community, thought that a lightning talk would be a really good opportunity to get my name out there and, with a little push, got me to sign up.

Speaker 2: 6:07

I think signing up for a lightning talk during the conference added another layer to my conference experience. To be honest, throughout the conference while I was attending talks, whenever I found free time, I would plan out my lightning talk and all the slides and my talking points. I'm a big time planner. You won't see me in an improv group anytime soon, but I find that if I had a general sense of what I was going to talk about, it gets me less nervous.

Speaker 2: 6:44

But during that whole process, planning my lightning talk was just a good icebreaker. When meeting and chatting with other conference attendees, I had other guides and scholars and John and Nina and I think Allie as well look through my slides and give me feedback. I'd have folks that I just met listen through my run-throughs and also give me feedback, and I'd go off to folks whom I've never met before, no context whatsoever, and just advertise my lightning talk. I called my lightning talk the opening keynote of lightning talks because I signed up for the first slot. All that was just a great icebreaker to get me to connect and meet more people in our community. That's amazing.

Speaker 2: 7:37

Yeah, it was really awesome.

Speaker 1: 7:40

I feel a lot of the same feelings that you're describing in terms of being an extemporaneous speaker. That's never going to happen for me. I need to plan things out and have it very structured. It is like I know exactly what I'm going to be talking about. So yeah, lightning talks are one of the aspects of RailsConf that I've never really done. I keep thinking about it. Oh, maybe this time I can. Nope, I can't think of anything to say. And then at this past RubyConf in November, at the end of it, the MC, it was kind of like if anyone wants to give a quick one minute lightning talk, now's your time. And I actually got up and did that and I talked about this podcast. It was one of those moments where I suddenly realized wait, I have something I can talk about. I think I can go for one minute. That might work.

Speaker 2: 8:30

Yeah, planning for like a five minute talk was just so stressful for me, so one minute almost feels even more stressful because you have less time and you're just on the spot. Let's go. Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 1: 8:46

I understand the sentiment For me in execution. I started talking about the reason behind this podcast, the events that led to me deciding to do this. It got to the point where she rang the gong oh, I have to wrap up right now. I filled the whole minute without a problem. I feel like one minute I could do, but five minutes the expectation for one minute is fairly low, I think. For me, no one's going to be able to convey a hugely technical topic or something like really in depth in a minute. It's a minute. It's going to be a really high level kind of brief summary. Five minutes is enough where you could get into something. You really have to be regimented and have the information condensed down as much as you can get it, because you need to be able to get to the next point. But I don't know. That's just my thoughts on it.

Speaker 2: 9:40

You have a point With my lightning talk. It was five minutes, a little less than that because I was afraid of the gong. As my first lightning talk I actually got to talk about my work at the planetarium zuniverseorg. It's funny, right after my lightning talk, an experienced Rails guru for lack of better words, chris Oliver sought me out to talk about my lightning talk.

Speaker 1: 10:09

Nice.

Speaker 2: 10:10

I've never heard of him before and at the time I had a roommate who I think she learned Rails through Go rails so she knew who Chris Oliver was, and whenever we were walking together she's like hey, there's Chris Oliver. Oh, a bunch of people I don't Hi. I'm not really sure I couldn't tell which one.

Speaker 2: 10:32

He's always surrounded by people, so I don't know which one was Chris Oliver, until he messaged me on LinkedIn a little after my lightning talk saying, hey, it turned out he started his Rails career with the platform that I was working on back in his college days. So I think he said it was Rails 1, maybe Rails 2. Wow, it's a really old school. And then it was his college internship. It's a really old school and then it was his college internship. So for me it was like meeting my tech ancestor if you want to call it that.

Speaker 1: 11:07

That's awesome. We're going to divert off the conversational track for a second here, away from RailsComp for a second. I'm just really curious what it is that this app at the Adler Planetarium that you support does. What is it that you work on? What does it do?

Speaker 2: 11:22

Yeah, so I work with zuniverseorg. It is the largest people-powered research platform, so we work with projects from various disciplines, from biology, arts and humanities and even astronomy. Usually, a lot of researchers will have a bunch of data with simple tasks, for example, classifying galaxies, whether it is a spiral galaxy or an elliptoid galaxy. You can learn a lot about galaxies just by knowing its shape and before it used to fall upon some poor old grad student who would just look at a bunch of galaxies and be like, yep, that's a spiral, yep, that's an elliptoid. But that would take hours and hours, and what this grad student at the time found out is that there are a lot of people out there who are willing to help out with this research because they're interested in the topic. So what researchers would do is crowdsource that classification to volunteers, to human volunteers who wanted to help out, and that's, in the gist, the platform that I work with and it's fun. Adler, as well as Oxford University and University of Minnesota.

Speaker 1: 12:50

Nice. That's very cool the stuff you can see in the sky. I've been really fascinated with the last couple of years. I was able to be in the path of the totality for the past two eclipses Really just kind of fascinated at a very amateur, novice level of just oh, some of this stuff out there in the universe is just really cool.

Speaker 2: 13:10

Yeah, I actually drove. So I'm in Chicago, but I had friends at Oberlin who were within the path of totality for the last eclipse. So we drove to visit my friend and we stayed over for the night and just experiencing just total darkness for a minute. It felt like minutes. It was amazing. You can't hear the birds because it's totally dark, and then the lights would go on and then the sun would come back out again and then you hear the birds chirping. It's so crazy. It was such a great experience. I am a total eclipse chaser.

Speaker 1: 13:49

The experiences I had with it were very similar. It's so surreal just seeing all of the lights just kind of go out, basically, and the world itself just kind of quiets down and then it all comes back up. It's really interesting how everything kind of just works together in this crazy world we live in. Back on topic. So we talked a little bit about your experience as a scholar. So then you came back into the program as a guide. Let's talk about that a little bit For a really bad pun here. Did someone guide you back into the program or how did you end up coming to decide to apply to be an actual guide here?

Speaker 2: 14:31

It was because my experience as a scholar was just really awesome. I wanted to pay it forward and just be a smiling, welcoming face to newer members of our community. Hence why I applied to be a guide. I don't think anyone really guided me, it was more of I had a great time. I would love to help out others too and just feel whatever Gabriel was feeling whenever he saw me give my lightning talk and really like get out there.

Speaker 2: 15:03

That experience was super rewarding. It was amazing to see my scholar and really all the scholars just come out of their shells, meet people and overall flourish and have a great time at the conference. And it's so heartwarming knowing that I was part of their conference journey. And I guess, as a former scholar, I understand that feeling of anxiousness going into a conference for the first time where you might not know anyone and you don't really know what to expect. So it was important for me as a guide to let my scholar and all the other scholars know that I'm around if you ever need me. I make myself easy to find during the conference. I'll be at the scholars and guides lunch and breakfast table. I'll be on Slack Overall. Just be around and hopefully that provides some comfort, just knowing that in a sea of unfamiliar faces, you can always find a smiling, welcoming, familiar face, willing to chat and willing to hang.

Speaker 1: 16:18

That's such a huge part of what the whole Scholar Guide program is about is just making sure that these people who are kind of entering our community have some very easy welcoming faces to help get them adjusted and into the community and feeling comfortable here.

Speaker 2: 16:34

Yeah, I totally agree and I think it's awesome just knowing that you're starting off with a lot of Ruby friends already with your guide as well as the other guides and your scholar cohort. So you're already not alone and I think that feeling gives you some comfort, or at least it did for me, and for me, like a lot of my co-scholars when I was a scholar, a lot of the guides when I was also a scholar as well as a guide, and all the connections I've made while I was a scholar are people who I consider my close Ruby friends today. It's crazy knowing that it's only been a little less than two years, but I consider a lot of them really close. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 17:25

I do the same thing. There are a couple of people that I've met at RailsConf that I just kind of clicked with somehow, which for me feels like a very rare occurrence. Programming attracts a certain type of person, it seems. We tend to be introverted, we tend to a certain amount of social awkwardness or anxiety, so I have historically a really hard time coming out of my shell and just introducing myself to someone and having a conversation and connecting with someone. Every now and then it kind of happens on accident. That started happening to me at RailsConf. I was just, oh, I think I made some friends. I only get to see them like once a year at RailsConf, but I'm happy to see them every time that happens.

Speaker 2: 18:12

I feel the same way in my day to day. I'm usually not as extroverted I feel like in a conference setting. I'm a way different person. I think I'm more willing to jump out there and meet new people, especially people that don't look familiar to me, and always going back to my Ruby friends and seeing them always puts a smile on my face.

Speaker 1: 18:36

Yeah, that's actually what happened to me at RubyConf in November. I usually have to kind of psych myself up for the conference to try and get one really good day where I'm able to socialize, but this past time at RubyConf I was good the whole week. The whole week I just felt so amped up. I get to see all the people and I get to learn interesting things and attending the talks and do all these things and it was a new experience for me just having a solid week of feeling like an extrovert almost.

Speaker 2: 19:10

For me it was very similar this past RubyConf. I'm usually within conferences and, like my normalrovert almost. For me it was very similar this past RubyConf. I'm usually within conferences and, like my normal day to day, I'm in bed by nine. Because it was in Chicago, I would just take the train over and Uber back home. I stayed up way later than I expected myself to be up. Usually I'm in bed, but I got to hang out with just all these amazing people and got to chat with a lot of them and play a lot of board games. It's so much fun.

Speaker 1: 19:46

I missed board game night this time I don't remember why, but I usually try to go to that and something came up.

Speaker 2: 19:52

But I usually try to go to that and something came up. Hopefully there will be a board game night in RailsConf. I will also bring some board games. My really good friend, daria Tan, who's in like Iowa City. She brought a whole suitcase full of board games and convinced me to stay even after the board game night was over, and hence why I was up till I don't know, maybe 1am, 2am. It was very embarrassing. Oh my God, I'm so tired.

Speaker 1: 20:23

No, no, no, there's no embarrassment here. You were enjoying board games.

Speaker 2: 20:28

Oh yeah, yeah, we were geeking out. It was so much fun though, yeah.

Speaker 1: 20:32

I went through several years where I was tending RailsConf but I hadn't figured out how to turn on the socialize part of my brain yet. The only thing that for years would do it for me was board game night. There's something about it about having okay, we're going to play a game and it's pretty structured and here's the rules, here's how you interact with other people, having that guidance in the form of a game. There's a reason gamification is something that often gets worked into applications and things is because it really does help kind of ease the flow of getting you to do something that, for some reason, your brain is afraid of. So no, there is no shade at all for staying up to what I am playing board games at the conference. I've done that. This is how I was able to get my brain to be like no, it's time to actually interact with people.

Speaker 2: 21:25

Honestly, that's a very good observance. I like never think of that during board games. It's more of a I want to win, especially like the collaborative games. I just want to win together. Let's oh absolutely make sure we don't lose. There's that too absolutely yeah if you've ever played pandemic, you gotta work together and figure out the plans so that you guys don't get overrun by the disease I honestly haven't played pandemic before, but I honestly haven't played Pandemic before, but hopefully next time someone will bring it so that I can learn.

Speaker 1: 21:57

It's a fun game. It's also very easy for one person to take too much control on the game in terms of just they've played it so many times, they know how it goes. Okay, you should do X and you should do Y and you should do Z, and it's like, well, if you're telling all of us how to play our turn, then am I really playing my turn or are you playing my turn? It can go poorly if you have the wrong mix of people. I've played several variations of the game over the years that have been really, really fun, because the group I was playing with was amazing Board games. I highly, highly, highly recommend board games to anyone I can convince to play them with me because I find them so much fun and entertaining.

Speaker 2: 22:40

Board game cafes are one of the places that I'll celebrate my birthday on.

Speaker 1: 22:46

Nice. All right, so before we wrap up, are there any other kind of experiences or stories you'd like to share from your time attending RailsConf?

Speaker 2: 22:57

I guess, just talking about my guide experience, I was really inspired by all the scholars that I met. Good at picking such a diverse group of devs who come from all walks of life, just hearing and helping out with their capstone projects. I've definitely learned so much. I usually come out of RailsConf with that coding itch, that motivation to try out something new, new concepts, new materials that I've picked up from a lot of their capstone projects.

Speaker 2: 23:35

Their lightning talks yeah, for me, my scholar at RailsConf was talking about his experience as in a volunteer mentor for exorcismorg. Not sure if you know what that is the best way to describe it as exorcismorg is. It's a coding learning platform full of coding exercises that a person can do to learn, and your code that you work on will be reviewed by volunteer mentors who will give feedback on your solutions mentors who will give feedback on your solutions. So my scholar at the time, felipe, his lightning talk was about him being a volunteer mentor and how much he's learned from just mentoring and looking at people's code samples and just learning about different ways to solve a problem. I thought his talk was so amazing that it really made me want to check out this website and try it out for myself. So that is what I did. I don't think I got too far. I did maybe like a lesson or two and go, and then life happened. But for the first three or four days after RailsConf I was just on exercises in that work, just playing around, learning new stuff.

Speaker 1: 25:03

And that's one of the things that's so fun about this job and about the language is that there are so many ways to approach solving any given problem, that having those opportunities to pair with someone, to mentor or be mentored by somebody else, to be able to see how someone else thinks through it, Because sometimes I get stuck in my own head tunnel vision trying to solve it a certain way and then somebody else comes in and comes at it from a completely different perspective and it's like, oh yeah, I didn't even consider that before. That's some interesting ideas that we could experiment with now. One of the reasons I love the Scholar Guide program so much is the whole point of it is to encourage that kind of interaction, of bringing in people with very different perspectives and getting them to interact with each other and to join the community and hopefully contribute back to the community in the end.

Speaker 2: 25:49

Yeah, 100%.

Speaker 1: 25:51

Well, michelle. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Speaker 2: 25:54

Yeah, thanks for having me.