I was excited to attend my first coding Meetup group here in Tokyo. For awhile the meetup scene was fairly sparse due to expired groups on Meetup.com and the various states of emergencies we went through in Japan. At the moment, everything is lifted and I finally found a meetup group with a small discount community near my place!
About 7 of us showed up today at a local Starbucks to work on various projects. I have been going through the Ruby track on The Odin Project, so I worked on some practice problems and took some notes on some of the lessons. One other person was working on a project on Docker and a few others were doing some reading and coding. I was not too social, as it was my first time and I was a bit shy. I hope to go back again soon though and talk more.
In all, it was a really fun experience for me. It allowed me to finally get out of the house and away from distractions, and I was fairly productive. Being around others who are where I want to be was also motivating, and I really look forward to more in-person meetups (and hopefully doing an in-person bootcamp in 2023) in the future.
Top comments (4)
Hi Aaron, thanks for sharing about your recent meetup experience. I attend a weekly Ruby Meetup (remotely) in my host country as well. The attendance has been low for the last two years of course (I've only been joining for the past few months). This is the first language for me, so it's really quite a walk-through, and I am so thankful that the coaches are so patient! I am currently looking for people to share accountability with, as I find that I am not practicing as many times a week as I should.
Have you discovered where/how to find people who are on a similar level, who would meet remotely to chat over challenges, and share encouragement/accountability with; groups on this forum, or elsewhere? It seems that Ruby isn't as popular as it once was, and no one in my daily life has any interest at all in learning.
Hopefully there are more in person meet ups in 2022.
Agreed! Hoping to go to several in 2022 if possible.
Thanks for sharing your experience. I really hope I can join a meetup in Japan soon as well. Looking forward to it 🙃