Ladies Learning Code workshop comes to Hamilton
When I initially heard that Hamilton would be hosting its first Ladies Learning Code workshop on national Learn to Code day, September 21st — I was immediately intrigued by the concept. It’s no secret that the majority of coders are of the male persuasion, and I loved the idea of seeing a bunch of ladies sharing in their journey of demystifying code together.
I was pleased to see upon my arrival at the event, that I was not the only one who felt this way.
It was so great to see that there was a full house!
I might add, that it was not just the number of attendees that impressed me. The number of people who were willing to volunteer as mentors for the day was also pretty extraordinary. In fact, our very own Nick Tomkin had offered his services as a mentor and was advised that with the huge number of people who were willing to sacrifice their Saturday’s to help out, they already had more than enough mentors participating!
The event was met with a tremendous amount of support from many other fantastic folks within our community as well. The generous people at Platform 302 were kind enough to donate their nifty little space to us, and the environment was wonderfully welcoming. To top it off, a nutritious and delicious lunch of salads and sandwiches crafted by Cake and Loaf was the perfect fuel, helping us all to stay energized and focused throughout the afternoon portion of this all-day session.
Going into the event, I felt that I already had a pretty good grip on the basics of HTML & CSS, as a current student at McMaster University’s CCE Web Design & Development program. I honestly wasn’t sure if I’d really take too much away (other than a little fun) from this event. Thankfully, it turns out that I was able to take away quite a lot! I found that there were a number of concepts covered in the class that I was really only half grasping, that I now feel I’ve got a much better understanding of.
Our instructor, Heather Payne, was clearly knowledgeable and did a superb job keeping us all on track (with the assistance of our experienced mentors, of course). The whole day was inspiring — full of women with varying levels of skill, who all got to walk-away from the session with their very own completed webpage built from scratch.
I was blown away by how much I learned from this experience and wish to send a big round of thanks off to all those who helped to make the day such a great day for those involved. I would love to see more of these events happening in Hamilton. Judging by the success of the first — I suspect that this is not something I will need to worry about!
