Hello! I'm Brittany and I work at Microsoft :)

So things have been crazy hectic the past month or so, but I had to take some time to update my blog with some of the awesomeness/craziness that is my life right now (as a PhD student).

First, I'm in Seattle...well, Redmond to be exact. I've been here before, but not as a Microsoft Research (MSR) intern :). That's right...dreams do come true. This summer I will be working with one of the top names in empirical software engineering right now, Tom Zimmerman (Google him, he's pretty fantastic). I would like to note I probably would not be in this position right now if it weren't for my bomb ass advisor, Dr. E. Thanks to his connections, dedication to his students, and what I assume to also be belief in me, I was able to get my name, face, and research abilities out there on a more personal level. Note: Always take advantage of opportunities to travel and meet new people - you never know who you might meet!

Second, although I am starting my internship, the work of a PhD student is never done! A bit of sad news, I just got back 2 paper rejections...now, this wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that these two papers have been getting rejected for the past two years...no bueno. It's a bit discouraging, but this is why I love my advisors. Rather than giving me time to wallow in my sorrow, Dr. E says "let's do a NIER paper." Immediately my mind shifts from "oh woe is me" to "okay, what do I need to do to get this done"...one of the beauties I imagine of going through the PhD. Eventually you learn to just move on...time is too precious to waste.

Third, I FINALLY convinced my mom to get on a plane, so my parents, my sister and her boyfriend will be visiting me this summer in July. I am super excited! They've never been and I can't wait to show them around and let them try all the amazing food around here :D. They're only staying for a little less than a week but I think it will be a good refresher to get me through the rest of my internship.

I don't know exactly what I will be working on this summer, but I know it will involve a survey because I've never done one and desire oh so much to learn (with Tom Zimmerman :D). I have a couple of ideas floating around, as does Tom, so hopefully by the end of the day today I will know what I will be working on. Wish me luck!

Until next time...

4 down...1 to go...

I recently came to the shocking (albeit looming) realization that in about one year's time, I will potentially be defending my PhD...finishing this long, exhausting, fulfilling, and crazy journey...

But then I thought about the fact that although I will be finishing the journey to my PhD, my journey is just beginning. The scary part is figuring out what that next, new journey is. Especially when all you've known is school and the structure that provides. What happens next? What happens when you don't have an advisor telling you when you screwed up? What happens when someone is coming to you for advice?

I don't have a lot to share right now, mainly because I am literally swamped with work from every angle...but I felt the need to stop and note that this shit is real. More real than it was 4 years ago...and getting more real every day. I just thank God for the support system I've had along the way - bless them for putting up with my shit and helping me grow to become the woman (and future Dr.) I am today.

Until next time...

Stress management...or lack there of?

As we all know (and if you don't know, this will help explain it ), the process of getting a PhD is quite stressful. Now, let's add on being in a relationship, involved in extra curricular activities, and trying to have a social life. Sounds damn near impossible, doesn't it?

For me it's always felt impossible, which is part of where my stress comes from. I enjoy being busy and having things to do outside of school...yet it's quite possible that a lot of the things I enjoy doing are bringing me the most stress. I love my boyfriend, yet making time for him and I is a rarity. I have friends and I'm close with my family, but I feel like I'm always missing out on everything. Put all these things together with trying to get your Doctorate and you've got a recipe for Stress Stew.

One thing I've always valued is mentorship; I wouldn't be where I am today if it weren't for mentors and sponsors I've encountered along the way. One person I consider a mentor that I met recently through a close friend/colleague, and have been meeting with frequently since, often talks about stress and stress management. After hearing about my issues with managing my stress and anxiety levels in more than one of our meetings, she suggested I read a book called "Zen and the Art of Happiness" by Chris Prentiss (for those of you who don't know, he founded Passages of Malibu, a treatment facility for addicts). Don't worry, I'm not an addict; unless we are including work as a drug.

Prior to reading the book, my friend who had already read the book came almost dancing into the lab one day. She said she had started reading the book and that it already had her handling stress differently. Despite my wanting to punch her in the face by the end of the day (love her!), I was intrigued by the idea that just beginning to read a book could get someone feeling as good as she did. So intrigued that I went home that evening and started reading the book. I must say I was not disappointed. Long story short, the moral of the book is that everything happens for a reason, deeming stress pointless (hence the title "...or lack there of?), and that we should embrace change.

I can't say that all of a sudden I feel like I can handle any and all stress, but I will say I feel like I can put myself in the right mindset to better handle my stress and anxiety. And for me, that's the most important step. I recommend anyone who is struggling with stress or going through a rough time give this a read -- it's a short read and really helps to put things into perspective, no matter who you are!

Not gonna talk your ear off this time (though maybe I already did :D)...more to come soon on publications and closing the semester as (and finishing my time as) WiCS President!

Grace Hopper, Diamonds, and Foundations of Software Engineering

Hello Planet Earth!

Long time ... long, busy, productive, crazy, fast-flying time. I know I said I would get better about posting more regularly, but this semester so far has been a whirlwind of paper writing, event planning, and overall maintaining my sanity :). Let me catch you up...

To start, WiCS, the organization I am currently President of and use as my "free time" filler,  is hosting our first hackathon this weekend. We decided to call it DiamondHacks (get it, diamonds are a girls' best friend :D) after being inspired by attending Pearl Hacks, another larger all female hackathon held locally. The event is this weekend so the last few days have been devoted to finalizing preparations and helping myself maintain my sanity. It's times like these when you realize how valuable having a team is -- photos and and update to come after the event! :)

On a more important/detrimental to my graduating note, my research has been keeping me on my toes. I just submitted a paper to FSE (Foundations of Software Engineering) 2015 and I must say - I feel surprisingly optimistic. Here's why I say "surprisingly": 1) I have submitted to FSE every year since I've been in the PhD program and haven't gotten in once, and 2) the acceptance rate is typically quite low (aka they are a bit more selective than other software engineering conferences).

Another reason I feel optimistic is because the research I have been trying to publish is finally starting to materialize into something that could potentially be a thesis...and more importantly my thesis :D. The study was conducted to identify the difficulties programmer run into when understanding and addressing notifications used by analysis tools, like FindBugs, the compiler, and refactoring tools. I conducted sessions with programmers where they used various tools and attempted to understand the notifications. I used card sorting after to determine difficulty themes, such as unfamiliar terminology and missing importance and rationale. Based on the themes, I propose some future directions for improving tool notifications either through tool changes or more in-depth research. The implication I intend for my dissertation is adapting tool notifications based on programmer experience; this would help deal with the over-arching experience-related difficulties programmers encounter. Details on the study and its findings will be posted in its own blog post, contingent upon FSE acceptance/rejection.

I've also submitted three proposals for Grace Hopper this year: one the beginnings of my dissertation and two workshop proposals I wrote with Denae Ford. One workshop on findings your strengths and using them and another on the power of blogging and web presence for building your brand. I'll go into more detail on these in their own blog post when we hear back :)


So wish me luck -- more to come soon on the data I'm collecting to model and predict developer knowledge and the statistics I'm (trying) to use to build and validate them!

Stay tuned...

Here's to a repeat of last week!

Another week of typically meager work life balance has come to an end. However, this week, I have more good to report than bad...yay! :)

Good:

I had an irregular number of meetings this week, mainly with my co-advisors Dr. E and Sarah. Typically I am a nervous wreck going into these meetings (this week was no different) and come out feeling slightly more pessimistic about getting my degree than I did going in. This week, however, was different. Not because I walked out of one meeting feeling optimistic, but because I left three meeting feeling optimistic regardless of the setbacks that may have been discussed :D. My advisor who I've been working with from the start feels that my progress has improved and for the first time in the 4 years I've been at NC State my advisor didn't name any things to be improved that I didn't come up with myself. It may seem like it would be better news to have no things that need improvement at all, but if you've ever done research or attempted to attain a PhD you know that's completely unrealistic :)

Not so good:

I'm still finding bugs in APATIAN. Just a little background, APATIAN mines GitHub software repositories for concept application and feature usage -- the goal of this prototype is to show the possibility of building an accurate model of developer knowledge. The prototype is doing what I want it to do, however, more often than it should; this skews my "knowledge values" which is no good.  For example, I just realized that the list of revisions being used was twice as long as it should be; this meant that when I ran my code it would go through all revisions twice. There's also the possibility that my counts are getting added redundantly when files are renamed or moved. I will report back when I know more...

Silver lining:

Boa. There exists some research on mining software repositories for feature usage that might provide some insights (or source code) that I can use to deal with some of the current limitations of my prototype. I've enjoyed building this from the ground up but it's getting to the point where I think I need to outsource as often as I can (that's if I want to finish in the next couple of years). 

I've been a bit under the weather over the past week or so (and things my personal life aren't the greatest) but weeks like this past week give me hope that I'm where I should be and that if I keep working hard it will all pay off. Until next time... :)

"Today was a good day..."

Hey all out there in cyber world!

Despite my feeling under the weather for at least the past week, things are finally starting to look up - what has turned things around for me good you ask? Let me fill you in...

First, today is my beautiful Mom's birthday. She hates taking picture so I don't have many recent ones of here but here's an old one that I love ever so much!

Today she turned 56 and doesn't look a day over 30. My sister and I sent her flowers and candy, which made her happy (one of my favorite things to do). I hate that I can't see her for her birthday often but I know (and she knows) it's for good reason and won't be this way forever. One of the many reasons I love her and my dad - so understanding :).

The other reason for my cheer pertains to my research. Though I've been making progress, sometimes slower progress than I would like, I have continued to feel like I'm not making the kind of progress I need to be making. Especially since I haven't conducted a study in over a year -- just been paper writing and coding. Now, I know at some point there is a transition from advised researcher to independent researcher but as it seems to draw near I continue to second guess not only my own abilities but the overall ability for me to successfully attain my PhD. I have a great advisor that does all he can in any given situation to help me be successful and make my way to becoming an independent research -- including reminding me from time to time that I'm not as much of a n00b as I like to sometimes make myself feel.

Last time I met with my advisor he had a few concerns regarding the work I'm doing...we called them "terrifying questions" that need to be answered before I move forward with planning for my oral proposal. I've been running my prototype on various repositories over the past couple of days and from what I could tell things looked promising...but the true test is feedback from the advisor. I won't bore you with the gory details but long story short the meeting concluded with him telling me "I'm now less terrified." Now, this may not seem like much but the questions I had to answer dealt with data, so they were pretty damn terrifying! But, after looking at what I did and the data I gathered, he was convinced *so far* that things will go as we'd like them to. Yay! :D

This all may seem like not so big a deal but please believe...big deal! I'm making progress and it's that much more likely I will finish in the year 2016. Future Dr. Johnson speaking... :)

Long time no speak :)

I'm baaaackkk (again)!

I was just updating my website and when I looked at the link to my blog I thought, "Brittany, people look at your website, which means people might click this link. Either update it, or get rid of it." Anyone who  knows me knows I'm somewhat of a hoarder so of course I decided to keep and update it :)

I won't do massive info dump like I did last time I went MIA, but I will give some high level highlights/details that will serve as the basis for blog posts following this one (which there will be!). I'm determined to post at least 3 times a week (and on special occasions of course).

Overall update, I'm currently finishing up the Fall semester of my 4th year; for anyone who doesn't know, that means I'm working to get the hell up out of grad school sooner than later! Currently I'm working towards getting my oral exam done soon - if you're curious about the research I'm working on right now, you can get more info here. I only took one class this semester (Teaching and Learning in CS) so my class load was super light meaning for the first semester I was able to focus on my research and building my brand. That involved making progress in my research as well as traveling and networking. Aside from going to Australia for the first time this summer to present my potential thesis work (:D), this semester I traveled to Michigan to the NextProf workshop to learn more about a career in academia and Arizona for Grace Hopper where I made more connections than I have in my past 5 years I've gone (including more connections at Microsoft, the importance of which I will discuss shortly). All in all, despite some set backs, this semester has been a successful one that I wish I could have described here in more detail!

I mentioned making connections at Microsoft; there is value in various dimensions here for me. For one, I was funded to attend Grace Hopper by a scholarship sponsored by Microsoft. This meant I was going to have ample opportunity to get my name out there and make connections of my own. My advisor has worked at Microsoft Research, so I've been able to make some connections through him; it was just nice to make some connections on my own :). Anywho, between the meals for scholars only and visiting the Microsoft booth at the career fair, I made a variety of connections, people that currently work and used to work at Microsoft and Microsoft Research. Part of building my brand, in my eyes, is getting experience doing research in a setting other than academia - my goal has been to do this at Microsoft Research for a summer internship. After such a successful trip to GHC, and encouragement from others, I submitted an application once I returned. I haven't heard back from MSR, however, I was contacted to interview for the Microsoft Azure team by someone I met at one of the GHC Microsoft events. I just had the interview Friday, which I think went well despite the fact that I am not actively looking for a development internship at the time. Even if I don't end up at MSR, I've made lifelong connections that have and hopefully will continue to benefit me as I move forward. The moral to this story -- networking is the key to success!! Never leave home not prepared to build your brand!

I said I wasn't going to do a dump, but it's looking more like one as I'm looking so I will bring this blog post to a close - until next time (which will be soon I promise)!