Hey All, sorry so late on this thread - many of the Women Who Code and Girl Develop IT workshops include parts of the night dedicated to inviting women to meet with HR and staff engineers from the hosting company, for the specific purpose of networking.  For instance, this one

http://www.meetup.com/Women-Who-Code-East-Bay/events/232603088/

I would suggest that she attend workshops rather than study groups for this purpose. 

As far as limiting attendance to women-only events, yes, it's probably not a good idea to do that.  But women/trans/nonbinary-centric meetups are not there to substitute the "open" events (which are, without name, cisgendered male centric), they're there to find a community that might not be found otherwise.  For some folks, it's encouraging to see people like them represented in the field that they strive to be a part of.  As far as the meetup percentage weighing heavy on the "dilettante"... and with all due respect Romy, that's some cold blooded verbage, you were new once too... encouraging her to attend the workshops meant for a more advanced demographic will help with that.

Very obvious caveat - I'm one of the directors of Women Who Code.

On Sun, Jul 3, 2016 at 11:06 AM, Romy Ilano <romy@snowyla.com> wrote:
CJ,

SudoRoom events are more hack at your own pace. They are welcoming to people who are willing to work hard and self-direct themselves... 

I wouldn't ever want SudoRoom to be a place where hackers are obligated to each and mentor people who are not genuinely interested in creating or doing software though! 

I have personally never felt unwelcome at any tech events full of engineers -- perhaps I may have been, maybe I have a thick skin. But the mentality of most Silicon Valley events is that they are willing to be patient and teach people who are willing to learn. 
Most of my negative experiences in tech have actually come from non-technically oriented women (even minorities) and business guys !  But never really engineers. 

 I think I was just lucky! 

I'm putting you in touch with her -> she is a great person. 


Best,

Romy






=============================

Romy Ilano



On Sun, Jul 3, 2016 at 11:00 AM, CJ Joulain <joulain@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi everyone.  :-)  I recently joined this listserv and meant to send an introduction earlier.  Romy's message was a reminder to virtually say hey.  I've been meaning to check out Omni Commons more; I've been to a few CounterCultureLabs events but haven't visited SudoRoom yet.

I'm also a recent bootcamp graduate from a non-traditional background.  There are tons of meetups in the Bay Area but tough to find a good match, particularly those who are new to the field.  And, frankly, folks aren't always welcoming.  I agree that more than inspirational talks are needed for someone to transition into a different career with the adequate technical training that they need.  Romy, I'd be interested in getting in touch with your friend.  There are a few groups out there that are self-study/new to the field oriented.  I'm also a co-organizer for a Latinxs in Tech meetup and many of our members were self-taught or went to bootcamps and can relate to what your friend is going through.    

Would you say SudoRoom events tend to be hack-at-your-own pace oriented?

Take care,
CJ

On Sun, Jul 3, 2016 at 8:35 AM, Romy Ilano <romy@snowyla.com> wrote:
I know a cool young lady who happens to have an awesome kid! She completed one of those developer bootcamps and is looking for a job. 

I feel guilty because I know nothing about the web development industry  for boot camp graduates- I know people will have many good and bad things to say about boot camps or the development industry!

Anyway, I met a lot of nice people who were doing javascript workshops .Are these still going on? I keep sending her to these nice but ultimately not very helpful for getting a job or becoming great at programming all women events that are sponsored by tech companies. ( These events are cool once in a while and are a great way for men to show support, but going only to all women events could handicap her IMHO. For beginners they are nice and augment networking but should not replace it - She needs more than inspirational talks, she needs mentorship and technical schools and connections)

Are there other boot camp graduates who are interested in hanging out ? I've also been guiding her to contribute to open source. I think there was a javascript event, right ?  


=============================

Romy Ilano



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