Today I went to a Girl Develop It Code and Coffee meeting at Bean Traders in Durham, which was positive experience. I was kind of nervous going into it because I wasn’t sure what and who to expect exactly, but everyone at the table in the coffee shop was extremely nice and it was much less of an intimidating space than I thought it would be. The people around the table were welcoming and helpful. I sat next to an older man who worked for Microsoft that had never coded python before, but was able to help me understand why the order of some of my lines was producing a result that was different than what I was intending for it to do. I think this ties in with some of the feedback I got that was about how I get frustrated when my vision of how a code should run doesn’t work because my vision doesn’t align with how the code actually performs. I think I really struck gold with this instance of Girl Develop It because I sat next to a person that was an experienced teacher who knew how to explain code to me. However, it was nice to go and see other people working through code and to see the confidence that they have when solving problems and working successfully as women in the tech industry.

Realistically speaking, I could see myself becoming a part of a professional community like this; however, maybe not with coding unless I end up doing a lot of coding projects for work. If there were a professional community that worked on solar or renewable issues and movements, I would definitely be there because it’s something that I thoroughly enjoy spending my free time working on and am passionate about.