CONFERENCES ARE IMPORTANT FOR DEVELOPERS

Many developers go to meet-ups and conferences to learn something new, or just to dive deeper into a subject that matters to them in some way.

With many resources out there such as blogs and Youtube, we have many platforms to learn from, so what do meet-ups and conferences give us that’s different?
(Source: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/why-conferences-and-meet-ups-are-important-for-developers-47806552faa8/)

Programming conferences are a big ally in your programming career, especially regarding the network you could do in conferences like this.

In today’s video, we’re going to talk about how programming conferences are important for developers and how you can totally shift your career once you start doing it the right way.

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Transcript Of The Video

Jason Humphrey: First and foremost, they have workshops. Workshops are extremely effective. Not every conference always does, but some of the better ones do, especially in the developer community a lot of the developer ones do. They have three days of workshops and their workshops are working on legitimate issues and legitimate problems from working with Cyprus and then testing to advanced angular to then working with animations. There’s a lot of different workshops in there that will actually teach you the skills you need to get really good at angular or something that is revolving around [inaudible 00:00:02:02]. When you actually go and plan out your conference schedule, it’s very important that you pick out the ones that will move the needle for what you’re doing in your job.

But far too often then people go into these conferences and attend these sessions and don’t get much out of it because they just sit there in the moment like, “Yeah, okay. All right, that’s interesting.” But we don’t want you to sit there and think that’s interesting. We need you to sit there, take notes, copy down all code snippets because almost everybody puts a code snippet out there for you to download and look at, and be present in the moment while still taking notes, while taking down URLs and fully engaging with exactly what they’re saying. Don’t be sitting on a keyboard slapping away, checking Gmail, checking your Facebook. Don’t do it. I should really say Reddit because I know a majority of us out there will spend our time in Reddit. Don’t do it. Pay attention in the actual lectures.

This next part that’s really effective is the networking aspect of a conference where you actually get to sit down and meet you or whether it’s having lunch with them, whether it’s in between sessions, whether you’re at the workshops, whether it’s in the day and you’re just chit-chatting with them, growing your network of developers like-minded is absolutely key when you get stuck down the road and you need to ask somebody for help. When you really want to grow that network so that you can always find someone that has an answer, this a really good way how. That is exactly why conferences can be worth the price tag alone right there, is the people you meet. Last but not least, the most important part about all of this is you have now learned something in the workshops, you have met contacts, you have learned something in the sessions. You have some new knowledge, but that knowledge won’t stick unless you go back and teach it.

So this is where it comes in really handy is you can take everything you learned, build a presentation, and go back and teach your team, give them all the notes you have, give them all the documentation, make it really easy and accessible and truly you don’t know something until you teach it. Conferences not only give you the opportunity to go learn something brand new, but they give you that ability when you come back that people want to hear from you, people want to learn. It is a really good scenario and setting within that first week you’re coming back to come back and present everything you’ve learned, and that is really going to help solidify what you learned.

Overall though, what it takes to become successful for going to an interview, when I say successful, I mean growing, getting better, what it takes is you making the most out of the situation. It takes you attending these workshops and putting your best foot forward. It takes you putting yourself out there in an extrovert mode every single day of the conference to network better. It takes you showing up, taking notes, being diligent with your time, and ultimately making the most out of the situation and coming home and teaching your team exactly what you learned and how they can take something away from you now and implement it in your project so it can move the needle. That’s going to do it for us. We’ll see you in the next video.