Joining Free Code Camp London
I joined Free Code Camp in October 2015, after some work on a Unity game I was developing halted due to budget limits. I was in a bit of a funk and didn't really begin completing many coding tasks until December of that year. Once I got started it felt good to get back into a comfortable rhythm. I think I get nostalgic about the beginner stages, it always feels good to revisit basics from time to time.
After exploring the website I noticed there were meetups in some local areas, and so I took a shot to see if anything was happening in London, ON on Facebook. There was! And they had a meeting coming up, so I joined with the intention of attending. Most meetups I've attended resulted in non-starter projects so I went in with an open mind and no crazy expectations.
My best memories working on projects were never alone, so I was excited to meet everyone. It wasn't long before two others showed up and I was in deep conversation with Natac13 and Dan Fletcher about how we all found our way programming. I graduated from Fanshawe College, having finally pursued my interests as a mature student.
We discussed some goals and what we hoped to get out of these meetups. I was relieved to hear that they both wanted to get to work and get something cool completed to show employers. Before we were kicked out of the library we settled on a web based chat application — Yak.
We’re drawing from past and self taught experience to create a node.js API server with a React powered client application. There’s a lot of learning to be done for all of us while we focus on helping each other, emphasising best practices we've seen or simply want to adhere too.
I hope this inspires other members to come on out, or readers to do the same and reach out to local programming communities. It’s easy to be driven when you surround yourself with driven people. You don’t have to be new to programming either, that’s not important here. I'm having a good time working with those around me with ambitious goals.
Come join on us Facebook!
