I have been home for a few hours now after my first experience at a professional community meetup, and I have put a lot of thought into what I wanted to write here. I attended the TriPython meetup at 100 Europa Dr. in Chapel Hill, NC. It was scheduled from 6pm-9pm. To get this out of the way, I want to say overall I thoroughly enjoyed it. I experienced a wide range of emotions, and not just my own (I will talk about this later). However, I was dissappointed with one fact, and only that the event that we (about 8 classmates were there as well) went to was simply a project night. This was explained to us that basically it was just a gathering for people to work on projects they had going on, and that any interactions would simply be if you asked questions. It was also explained to us that other meetings have different themes, like lightning presentation nights where everyone presents kind of unprepared 5 minute stuff. There are more formal lecture nights as well with full blown presentations, etc. I would have loved to have gone to more of a formal one just to get more of the experience. Having said that, this was great also!

The first thing that happened upon arriving was we were welcomed with several large pizzas and refreshments. Now, the following statement may sound like a joke, but it isn’t…this really eased some nerves. I say that because, I get that we are all humans, we are all people, etc. but sometimes it is good to have a reminder. I was walking into a completely new environment, with people that I have envisioned in my mind as computer wizards with knowledge that extends this earth, and to walk in and see that hey, they are like everyone, they like pizza and drinks too, it sets you at ease, and welcomes you, not to mention the pizza was great. I hope that makes sense and doesn’t sound too weird.

The next thing that happened was the leader of the group, Chris, introduced what TriPython was all about, explained how it works (going back to different event types discussed above) and asked us all introduce ourselves. We went one by one telling our name, occupation, and what interaction we have with python. Many of us were from class, so the names were familiar, most of the occupations were student, and the interactions were class projects. There were about 7 others who were there during these introductions (some came later after intro’s) and these people really varied in who they were and what they were doing. There was a Data Scientist who was working on machine learning (I asked the whole group what machine learning was because 3 different people mentioned this during the introductions) to help get his company, AT&T, to process customer service tickets automatically. Another man there, named Steven, was working on a program dealing with linear regression for Genomes. A husband and wife were there who were helping each other, as one said they had more of a programming background and the other more of a web development background. I thought that was incredibly neat! Then there was Chris, who worked at the building we met at, and said he had 20+ years of programming experience including about 3-5 years experience of Python. Overall, it was neat hearing all of these different paths and experiences that these people had taken, all to end up in the same room that I was in that evening. This was a great experience, and if they didn’t seem so deeply invested in their projects I would have talked to them even more.

Then came time for us to break off and work on our projects. This was when I took the opportunity to continue to brainstorm my idea for more data visualization in my final project. I went around to several people, introduced my game to them, and asked them where they could see data visualization coming into play. I have to say, many of them weren’t too sure. Once I introduced the idea of a map like you, Prof. Hauser, suggested, they mostly agreed, but then struggled to help me come up with how. Overall, this process was a wash and I will have to go back to the drawing board. I then pivoted to working on creating the ability to save my game, and pick up where the user left off, which I was able to do. I discussed my feelings on this task in my project update post, so you can read about that there.

Lastly, about 10 minutes before I knew I had to leave (it was from 6pm-9pm but it was come and go as you please, I left around 8:30), I decided to just sit back and observe, and take it all in. I did this for several reasons. Without going into too much detail, I will say that only a couple years ago if you told anyone that knew me I would be back in school, much less a great school like UNC, they wouldn’t have believed it, or would have said only if a miracle happened. I have taken the moment to sit back and realize I have come very far, but I wanted to do it again, as now I had reached an even further milestone. I was sitting amongst peers, not neccessarily peers in terms of age, but of interests. I have started to find myself, and this step, even though it was at the instruction of a professor, is another big step in my life. I wanted to soak this in. But also, I wanted to observe others. And this may have been the single most interesting experience from the evening. I watched the husband and wife interact, two minds coming together, helping eachother, brainstorming, but still having the relationship quality, where at times it was bickering or slight arguing! I watched a gentleman maybe 10-15 years older than me, sit back, stare at his computer, and put his hands on his head or shake his head miserably several times. I legit thought to myself that is me in 10-15 years. For a moment it was hilarious, as I could feel what he was feeling as I have felt that many times this summer semester, but then I realized the emotion he was feeling and felt for him, and then found myself rooting for him. I watched the leader, Chris, work closely with two of my classmates, and he talked about formatting stuff that we hadn’t talked a ton about in class like tabs versus spaces and 4 spaces versus 2 spaces. I still don’t know exactly what he meant, but in that moment I finally understood what you, Prof. Hauser, meant by programmers being adamant about how things should be. I even heard one person discuss why you can’t use global variables to an older woman who came in after introductions. It was a medium size room, with only about 15-20 people, and yet I took more out of this moment of just sitting back and observing, than I have in many other circumstances recently in my life.

For all of the reasons mentioned above, there is no doubt that I could see myself going to these types of meetups in my career. In fact, I already took note of the next one of the scheduled TriPython events, June 22nd in Durham, and it will be focused on a topic called HoneyPy. I truly see myself doing more stuff like this, not just in the world of programming or python, but in all my interests or potential career paths. I was originally nervous, had my nerves settled, then had a great time, filled with wonderful observations, interactions, and experiences, so why wouldn’t I want to be a part of that more often?! I want to say thank you for having us do this. I can for sure say I wouldn’t have done this without being forced initially. And because of that reason, I would recommend that you always include this in your future curriculum as it is extremely beneficial to experience at least once.