New Crew Member: Charielle McMullan
Meet Charielle McMullan, Ten Forward's newest intern! She's joining us for the winter after graduating in December from the Madison YWCA's web development bootcamp, YWeb Career Academy, which teaches design and front-end development.
While still in school, Charielle built a Slack integration to help translate English into some of her fellow students' native languages (she herself studied Chinese at the University of Wisconsin-Madison).
You can follow her on Twitter at @oh_charielle.
Why did you decide to attend YWeb?
I was looking for an opportunity that would allow me to increase my skill set, as well as connect me to successful people.
Can you tell us a little bit about the program? What was it like?
YWeb was very intense. There was always something new to learn or to be built everyday. At times I walked into class not knowing how the day would go. During my time there, I was able to connect with my classmates while having fun learning new dev languages.
What was one of the most interesting things you learned in school?
Our instructor [Rasheid Atlas] always encouraged us to deconstruct websites to see how they worked. So using a lot the online dev tools, I was able to manipulate a lot of things on a webpage to better understand how it worked.
What are you excited to learn at your internship?
I’m excited to be able to take part in building projects, and also find ways to make things better in different projects. I would like as much as experience as I can get, learning all team members' jobs so that I am well versed in how the company works.
Can you tell us about the Slack integration you built? What prompted that?
Using an IBM/Watson language API, I was able to integrate that program into the YWeb Slack channel. Most of my classmates during YWeb spoke a different language [than English] as their native tongue, so I thought it would be beneficial to the group to have the option to translate statements to different languages. My goal was to make sure everyone felt connected to the group, so that we could all grow together.
What's something about you people might find surprising?
I play four instruments.
Which is superior: cats or dogs?
Dogs.
Favorite movie, TV show, band/musician, emoji.
Movie: "Joe’s Apartment"
TV show: "The Golden Girls"
Band/Musician: Yuna
Emoji: Grinning Face 😁
If you could build a mobile app tailored for you, what would it do?
An app that allows me to trade items (electronics, clothes, household items etc.,), so basically a craigslist-like platform, without money being a factor.
You studied Chinese at UW-Madison. Do you see parallels between learning a foreign language and learning a programming language?
All languages, both spoken and programming, allow you to communicate with entities, both human and nonhuman, which in turn allows for you to create an experience for everyone and everything. I’m not sure if I can create decks of flashcards for all programming terms, like Chinese characters, but learning both has proven to be beneficial in helping me deliver a message.
Star Trek or Star Wars?
Star Trek.