How We Kicked Off Our Largest Class of Fellows Ever
by Saidah Bishop, Communications Assistant at Code2040
135 Black and Latinx students from 60+ universities all together in one place? Sounds like a Code2040 event!
But not just any Code2040 event — our sixth Welcome Weekend which launched our largest class of Fellows, ever! Welcome Weekend, which took place at Dogpatch Studios in San Francisco this year, is an opportunity for all of our Fellows to meet each other, their mentors and managers, and the Code2040 staff before everyone starts their internship.
However, Welcome Weekend isn’t just a meet-and-greet. Students are using those three days to build the relationships and toolkit they need to be successful throughout their summer internships. We hosted some amazing sessions that covered topics like how to create community norms for a group of 135 people, understanding the intersections of your identity, and how to create the summer you want. We also saw the power of taking students who are usually the one woman or person of color in their CS department and throwing them into the most diverse room in Silicon Valley.
Here are some of the weekend’s highlights from our 6th class of Fellow’s official hashtag — #viewsfromthe6th
Bringing In The New and Welcoming Back The Old
Welcome Weekend serves as both an orientation and homecoming! Our largest class brought new students, new mentors and new managers into the Code2040 community over the weekend. These students ranged from Sophomores in college to PhD students. Our mentors had quite the range in experience as well with some having just started their career a year ago to others having been in tech for two decades.
Welcome Weekend also brought back some familiar faces! We had almost 15 Fellows from our 2016 class return as Senior Fellows this summer and even more return as volunteers. Not to mention dozens of former managers and mentors back for round two (and in some cases round three and four)!
Sessions that Encouraged Everyone to Bring Their Full Selves
Creating a space with this many Black and Latinx folks means that what would be the “elephant in the room” in other places, are main topics of conversation here. We tackled it all — race, gender, sexuality, class. Being a part of a community as diverse as ours means becoming fluent in tough and uncomfortable conversations.
Sessions That Gave Everyone The Tools and Techniques Needed to Succeed This Summer
We already know each Fellow who comes into our program is talented enough to succeed in tech, so we design sessions that will take them to the next level. Whether it was coaching Fellows on how to effectively network or using principles of design-thinking to create a summer that will give them the most impact in their personal and professional goals — our workshops are all about elevating our community.
Next up is our Hackathon on 7/15 & 7/16 where we will get to see our Fellows’ brilliance in action as they spend 48 hours designing different products in teams. Keep a watch on #viewsfromthe6th on social media…this summer is just getting started.
Until then check out our Fellow’s official summer playlist!
