My experience at the WTMB: JavaScript Crash Course
Originally posted at Women Techmakers Berlin.
I recently had the opportunity to attend the JavaScript Crash Course by Women Techmakers Berlin. It was a 2 months course, starting in October. The lectures were every Thursday from 7 PM to 10 PM and the goal of the course was To introduce JavaScript and Node.js as a platform for backend applications.
At first, when I signed up to the course, I was unsure if I was going to make it until the end. 8 weeks seemed like a long time and December seemed so far away. How wrong was I! Time went by so quickly, and I felt so at peace during the course. Even when I had a rough Thursday, I always knew everything would be better the moment I reached the course location and the lecture started. It happened every single time.
The course was well structured and the instructor is very experienced. It was so amazing to see how Armağan (our instructor) captured the attention of all the attendees and kept all of us engaged, even though we all came from different backgrounds or were at different stages in our Software Development Careers.
I had such a great time during the course! Every time a week started I was so looking forward for Thursday to arrive! When finally Thursday arrived, I would wake up and say:
Yay! It is JavaScript Day! It is JavaScript day! 💃
I was surprised by the amount of content we were able to cover in just 2 months! The graduation event was awesome. I felt so inspired by the projects that were presented and to see all my classmate’s ideas coming to life.
I will definitely keep going to these events and will keep learning new things. I consider it is very important to discover and experiment with different technologies, tools or languages from time to time. To allow yourself to be out of your comfort zone.
I re-learned many things during the course. This is something that I want to keep doing. I think that by re-learning (sometimes the basics of programming), I will always discover new things. It is like watching again and again that movie that I love so much and I just do not get tired of watching, even if I already kind of know the script (ehem … Star Wars Episode IV … ehem). Or reading my favorite book many times, I always remember something I forgot I loved, or I find a new phrase that had not made sense to me in the past and does now.
The adventure of this course not only helped me learn and understand better a new programming language and a new way of thinking. It did something way more important for me: It helped me remember why I chose this path, why I chose to become a Software Engineer, why I felt in love with Technology. I felt so safe to fail, I felt so free to learn. Sometimes we get so deep into the cycle of our day to day work, of our routine, that we forget our roots, that we forget the joy of creating something new, the simple Joy of Programming.
Thank you so much to Armağan Amcalar for taking the time to prepare and teach this course. To Women Techmakers Berlin for organizing the course. To my colleagues, friends and family for their support during these two months.
Finally, if you are interested on the course, you will be very happy to know that all the lectures are recorded on the course site. Also, these.
Thank you and May the Force be with you! ✨
Eli Flores