One of the tips you read over and over about learning to code is that mentorship and community are really important and these things will help speed the process along if you can have conversations with people who know what they are doing. Sadly, I live in the middle of nowhere. The closest "meet ups" are over 2 hours away which is not practical on any regular basis. That said I have decided to do a couple things that are pretty out of character for me:
(1) Start commenting on blogs and asking questions on Stack Overflow and being willing to search for answers in the wider community. If I can't meet people locally, I will at least try to develop a stronger web community.
(2) Since I work at a college, I have reached out to the computer science professor (it's a small college) and he has agreed to let me sit in on this semester's Computer Programming I course. I am sure it will be a little bit weird to be sitting on the other side of the classroom with some of my former students, but I think it will be worth it in the long run!
Community and networking has never come easy to me. I have never enjoyed being the type of person who shamelessly hustles everyone at a conference or who is always introducing myself like a slippery salesman. However, as I have grown older I have realized that you must make connections in the world if you hope to learn anything new or go anywhere. Therefore, I will suppress my shy nature and put myself out there!
Are you learning coding yourself? Taking a course? Interested in my struggles? Feel free to drop a comment or email me at dalrymp6@gmail.com.
Total hours into Programming: 41 (0 yet today)
Progress on Hartl's Tutorial Ready to start Chapter 3!
Code Academy Points: 451
Code Academy Badges: 50
Code Academy Skills Finished: 2 (Make a Website, Ruby)
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