Pinterest is my favorite app at the moment. Just like any millenial/genZ I am on my phone a lot and hence prone to doom scrolling. But I tried to hack myself into getting something good out of this force of habit and going on Pinterest (instead of instagram/tiktok) when I want to scroll.

This led me to reconnect with my creative side and make so many boards for art inspo, fashion and makeup, outfit inspo, mental health, and many more

Lately I have been using Pinterest to get inspiration for acryclic/watercolor art projects that I can use as wall art for my new ap{art}ment. 🏠🎨😁 Here are some of my latest creations:

Aside from invoking the artist in me, it also refreshed my memories of the times I spent at Girls Who Code that led me to create my personal website which I am now going to merge into this blog. My motivation? Also Pinterest!

Up until taking my GWC students on a fieldtrip to their HQ in San Francisco I used to view tech and art as somewhat mutually exclusive. There have been several instances where me and many other creative friends of mine have been told that “oh! you? in analytics/tech? but you seem more of a creative types?” and my response has been “why not both, brother?”. This is perhaps an unconscious bias (about being skilled in either/or) that has been ingrained in our society(perhaps especially in South Asian cultures). Thankfully due to being exposed to multi-talented/dimensional people in my experience teaching for GWC and also during my times getting my bachelors at a liberal arts school(that also offers STEM education), and also Berlin, I have witnessed many examples of people who enjoy and excel in both their tech and creative endeavours. I have met dual math and music majors in college. I have had an excellent analytics engineer colleague during my time at HF who also does music/DJing. I have met standup comedians who do software engineering as their day job. Such multi-faceted examples have led me to indulge in my creative side while continuing a career in analytics and have also helped me shed limiting beliefs that have usually been a product of internalizing external remarks/opinions or my own unconscious biases.

Following is my experience of visiting Pinterest HQ in 2017. (Notice how the writing is peak kid-in-a-candy-store-20s-Stuti 😅, just discovering the world of tech. I cringed many a time reading this but I didn’t change my draft from back then, as I wanted to save and show the non-jaded version of me just entering the world of tech)

Pinterest Fieldtrip 2017

Going to Pinterest was my most memorable field trip with Girls Who Code. Although all engagement opportunities excite me because we get to meet inspiring people working in Tech, I was especially excited about this one since I am an avid user of Pinterest and wanted to see where the magic happens. I was so impressed by the lobby aesthetic. And I could only imagine how beautiful the rest of the campus would be. “You looked very excited, Stuti!” is what one of the students said to me when she noticed how I was suddenly acting half my age. I quickly regained my composure and ‘teacherly’ stature when our host came to invite us in.

Our excitement grew as we saw the welcome sign. Our host invited us to a buffet breakfast laid out for us and the employees. Although our sponsor company, Autodesk(and really every big tech company at this point) also has free food and fancy espresso machines, we were especially impressed by the food at Pinterest. I was being a dork about the flavored and sparkling water machine. Such an amazing use of technology! We ate delicious breakfast, mingled with other girls who code classroom, and continued to be awestruck by the cute office aesthetic.

We were then split into teams and assigned a tour guide to take us around. Our tour guide was a wonderful pinployee who opened her introduction by asking us to guess the countries Pinterest is expanding in. It was interesting to learn that despite being a relatively young company Pinterest is reaching so far! We then walked around and saw more beautiful things. My two favorite things were the knitting station and the wine themed office. A lot of my students were so happy to learn that the office is dog friendly. We then proceeded towards the panel discussion led by about 6 female pinployees. They talked about their experience and future aspirations. This is where my pincrush(sorry for all the Pinterest puns) went beyond what some might call a superficial interest. Apart from being extremely aesthetically pleasing, Pinterest is also full of skilled software engineers, mathematicians, and creators. At girls who code graduation our keynote speaker gave a speech and talked about how companies in future would prefer STEAM majors over just STEM majors, that extra A being art. And I think companies like Pinterest are already showing this trait that is anticipated to be desirable in future. Our tour guide pointed out how all the posters and pictures on the walls were for a campaign and all the photographers and models were actual Pinterest employees. I was extremely inspired by the varied backgrounds and life stories of the panelists and for once, I didn’t see as much gender disparity as I usually see when I tour a tech company office. They also value creativity and art. Our tour guide told us how employees often come to the knitting nook and create their own things or do Pinterest crafts.

The fieldtrip ended right after the panel and we said our final goodbye. I wished the panel lasted longer or extended into a meet and greet with the panelists. I would have loved to personally talk to those women and thank them for sharing their stories with us. But we had to head back to resume our final projects planning and other classroom stuff. It was most definitely the more memorable and inspiring fieldtrip I have ever been to.

So there it is! My experience of visiting Pinterest in 2017. And as mentioned earlier, this blog will now also feature my analytics projects as I no longer believe in separating the artist and the tech professional in me.

So here are some of my past projects from my other portfolio website being merged into this blog:

• Youtube Trends Project
• My Tableau Portfolio
• Girls Who Code 2017
• Girls Who Code 2016

Hope you like and enjoy this new blog revamp!✌🏻