How to Start a Coding Club in your college?
“Find similar enthusiasts as you, and you can team up to do wonders.”
Considering the benefits of coding and comprehending codes in this tech savvy world, all universities and schools want to establish clubs which can promote coding skills in their students. So, how to actually form such clubs at universities and colleges is going to be covered in this article.
1) Find related people of your domain.
To begin the venture, you have to look around your college campus to find people who are also interested in coding. It doesn’t matter if they are pursuing their degree in Commerce or a language, all that matters is interest and consistent hard work to learn anything. Go around your college or use a platform that your college uses to air all the information through, taking a little survey of how interested people are in having a coding club. For sure, you will gather a handful of enthusiastic people who might have interests similar to you. You can discuss the problems faced in pursuing their passion in coding and talk about what steps you could take together. You can organize sessions to hear their views and express yours. A bunch of keen people to get into learning coding and motivated enough to work diligently will help you get started.
2. Seek help from college authorities.
A good talk with intriguing people will help but to actually give life to your needs, you need to have the support of your college authorities. The college director or the principal can be the go-to people to propose to about this idea. You can convey the necessity of having a coding club in your college. Hold a meeting, if possible, for the same and ask them to help you begin. To not overwhelm them in the beginning, do not ask for financial support on their end so that they can trust that you are trying to establish something exciting.
3. Go out and create awareness.
After establishing a coding club, you need to go out and execute everything you have planned. You should find ways in which you can expand your network by organizing small inter-college events that showcase your venture. Beginner level quizzes and seminars are great things to start with. This will boost the confidence of the college students and also aid you in building an eager audience for your journey.
4. Get experts in your contact.
After a few easy-going coding quizzes and other inter-college events, you can try to find experts in the coding area to visit your college to conduct a few insightful sessions. If possible, you can also arrange some useful workshops where the coding club members get a chance to practice coding themselves. They will gain a great deal of insights and learn a lot. The leaders of this domain can also be asked to organize talk sessions where they tell about the career opportunities in coding and other related domains like Artificial Intelligence, Natural Language Processing, Competitive Programming and so on.
5. Coding opportunities.
While encouraging the club members to give their valuable time to learning coding skills, you also need to provide them opportunities where they can showcase their skills. The tech giants also contribute in expanding the coding culture. Companies such as Google and Microsoft organize various open coding competitions like G-Summer of Code, KickStart, HashCode etc. and motivate everyone to participate in them. Other coding opportunities can also be found on websites such as CodeChef, Hackerrank, CodeForces, et. al. which organize various long challenges, short competitions, and other practice problems for coding. Introduce all these challenges and competitions to the members where they can register and participate.
6. Go online.
To get more outreach with your coding club strategies, you can consider creating a website for your coding club as well. There are websites such as Wix and WordPress which let you host your website very easily by providing readymade templates. Another way could be to code your website yourself for most flexibility and control of your website. You can then host the website on the World Wide Web. The website will not only benefit you but also the club students for finding all the information and updates about upcoming events of your coding club. And lastly, a website for a ‘coding club’ really makes sense.
7. Talk Open-Source.
It is not just huge firms that promote coding. Almost all coding enthusiasts also believe in open source. Talk about open source coding to your club members and try to convince them that they do not always need a job to be interested in coding. GitHub supports this argument as it is a place where you can contribute to open source projects. The CEO of Google (Sundar Pichai) pursued Engineering in Metallurgy but still is the head of the biggest tech giant in the world. You can also pursue a career in coding without a degree in it.
8. Everyone needs resources.
Before you decide to learn something, you will have to surf the Internet to find sources like relevant books, lecture videos, or courses for the same. You can provide the club members courses or books on coding. Many learning websites such as Coursera, Alison, Udemy, and even YouTube provide various courses on coding and there are several writers and publications who publish wonderful books on coding. Introduce the students to all these platforms and talk to your college/university to sponsor some courses for the students.
9. Be motivated.
Times may come when you could feel demotivated due to various factors like the number of attendees in the events you organize for the coding club. In those scenarios, keep trying to move forward because you are doing something for your college, and the students will always remember you for starting this venture and bringing the coding era in your college/university.
In all these ways, you can establish an army of coders who would be self-inspired and determined to code the world according to them!
