When I started learning to code on freeCodeCamp, I had no idea where this journey would take me. If you would have told me I would be initiating conversations with people from all over the world for a project about learning to code, I would have said: “you have me mistaken”. It’s difficult for me to initiate conversations. It can be terrifying and small talk has always been elusive to me.
A while back I saw this post either in the forum summary or by browsing the forum looking for resources. I can’t remember. I stared at the post thinking for a while. I read some of the comments then browsed other categories. I went back to the post and decided to send an email.
Learning to code is hard. Learning to code alone can be even harder and without support, it’s easy to quit.
Welcome to the team!
After a day or two, I received a Slack invite welcoming me to the Raccoons. At the time, the cohorts were the Foxes, Rhinos, and Raccoons. Everyone is asked to introduce themselves in the “intros” channel if you’re comfortable. After posting my intro, I was welcomed to the group with thumbs up emojis, “hi ya’s”, “welcomes” and other friendly responses. As I read through the intros, I found that people were in different sections of the fCC map. Some were working through Basic JavaScript, others were in Intermediate or Advanced Algorithms and some were building their Tic Tac Toe or Simon games. I thought, “This may not be so bad. I’ll learn to code with other’s and maybe get some help with Git!”
There is freedom in the cohorts to take the initiative. You can suggest a project to work on, apps to build or work through the curriculum together. There are pair programming festivals to introduce and teach people how to pair program. For the first festival, a Rhino took the lead and asked those interested for their dates of availability, time and timezone and just like that people are learning new skills.
There are also cross-cohort projects and chats so people have the option to meet more current/future developers to work and build together. Everyone is at a different skill level. Some are transitioning from other careers or using fCC to supplement school or boot camp work. Others may have been developers for several years looking to improve their front-end or back-end skills.
I didn’t see the flashing lights of opportunity ahead.
Attempting to step outside my comfort zone, I joined a few conversations that were about things I enjoy. Travel and languages. From there shared a story about an adventure I had crossing the border from Mozambique to Malawi in a direct message.
To be clear, I don’t have a problem talking to people. I struggle with initiating conversations and that awkward pause when it’s clear I’m uncomfortable with small talk but I don’t know how to exit the conversation. Do you know that feeling? I could talk to you all day if the topic is interesting and I’m learning something.
There are people from all over the world in the cohorts. Soon I would be having conversations with some of them. A group project was suggested to build a site like Humans of New York.
The goal is for people to share their story of learning to code regardless of where they are in the journey and the “meet” other campers. Some people don’t live in or near a city where Meetups and other tech events occur so it’s nice to have an online community familiar with what you’re working on.
What have I done?
I enjoy hearing other peoples stories so when I was asked to help gather stories for the project I said “yes” before I thought it through. Immediately followed by:
This meant I had to contact strangers and ask them to share a part of their lives. How do I do that? What have I done? My forehead started to itch. My eyes started to burn. I may have looked like I was having an allergic reaction. I was a mess. Gripped by fear. I had this conversation with myself:
“I should back out.”
“No, I shouldn’t.”
“Yes, I should.”
“No, I shouldn’t.”
“Where do I begin?”
“I have no idea.”
“Maybe I should start with the questions...”
“Ok, I’ll start there.”
Over the next couple of days I came up with a list of questions and after reading through the intros in my cohort I crafted the first message. I must have rewritten the message five times and it took me about an hour to send it. I was so nervous, but after I sent the first message then the second, then the third I realized it wasn’t so bad. The worst that could happen was people didn’t want to share their story or didn’t respond. I sent a few emails and thought I was a seasoned journalist for the Daily Planet!
Next thing I know, I was contacting people from different cohorts starting conversations and reading some very interesting stories. I chatted with a Brazilian man living in Dublin, a mom learning to code with the support of her husband, a graphic designer from Serbia, a man from Bangladesh living in Finland, a woman living in the Midwest(America), a stay-at-home dad in the Philippines, a woman who is an IT recruiter in London, a man traveling through India with his girlfriend. The list goes on an on.
Once I kicked the fear, I realized it wasn’t so difficult to start conversations. I’ll have to keep practicing because this isn’t easy. When the fear tries to creep back in I have to remember “What’s the worse that could happen?”.
Human after all…
This isn’t a utopia for future developers where everything is perfect and we skip through fields of sunflowers between coding sessions. We’re human. Things won’t always go as expected. The cohorts are new so there will be growing pains.
Remember: Be nice to each other.
Everyone is here to learn and there is so much to learn. Working with people in different time zones, time restraints, unexpected life events, prior commitments and everything else can be challenging. This isn’t too different from what you may experience at work or in other team environments.
We’re learning a lot of valuable skills for our future as developers. Some may decide to freelance, become a founder, co-founder, work for a startup, move into a new position at their current company or something else. Learning to code is a skill that provides options. Some are working through the curriculum full-time others part-time. There are no time restrictions or cost.
Join us here. Let’s work through freeCodeCamp together.
Several people from design, back-end and story teams worked on the project and many more will join the teams as we move forward. Check out the beta version of Campfire-Stories here.
