Introducing myself: @aleisha - your resident coder girl who sings a bit too

Hi Steemit!

My name's Aleisha, I'm 19 years old and live in New Zealand. My presence on the internet is mostly on YouTube, where I post videos of me singing various pop and RnB songs in random rooms all over my house - but I'll be using Steemit to share my thoughts and interests with all of you!

So what can I tell you about myself? Well, an average day for me would start with going to university. I'm studying two degrees: a Bachelor of Science majoring in Computer Science, and a Bachelor of Commerce majoring in Management. I love what I'm studying, and now that I'm in my second year I have a lot to say about my degrees, being a student in New Zealand and being a woman studying STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths) papers.

After uni I usually head to work. I work at Catalyst IT as a Junior Developer, where I've worked for about three years. I love working for at Catalyst. They are hugely supportive of me and have always provided me with opportunities to grow as a programmer and a person in tech, and I love that diversity is such a priority for them. Being a woman in tech has given me a really different angle on the world and on how I want to live my life. It helped me work out that I am a feminist and that I want to do more to get more women, not only to work in STEM, but to also stay in STEM. I want to lead some kind of change and make STEM industries more welcoming to women.

Catalyst IT runs an annual Academy for high school students, which I've helped at for the past 2 years. Being a mentor for students is such a rewarding feeling and teaches me a lot. At the moment, I run a weekly code club at my primary school where I teach basic programming concepts through Scratch, some HTML & CSS and then touch on Python at the end of the year. In the future, I'd love to run code clubs in lower decile schools where they don't have the technology or resources, or target single-sex schools to encourage more young girls to explore programming and technology.

When I'm not doing uni assignments or bug fixing, I spend a lot of time singing and playing guitar. I'm inspired by people like Beyonce, Rihanna, Nicki Minaj and Ariana Grande - not just musically, though I love their sounds, voices and musical vision - but by their strength, how they use their power to educate and motivate young women, and how they embrace their sexuality. They are such dominant figures in the music industry and they never let anything or any man hold them back.
Here are some of my covers:

And my first ever studio cover, which I'm very proud of:

Some of my other passions include make-up, sports, food and dining, politics and dogs.
I hope you enjoy and I'm excited to start sharing my life with you all!

Thanks :)