What we need to take our learning to another level, is a community we can grow in. At Year Up the concept of community is instilled from the get go. The faculty drives home the point that you can’t do it alone, and that building a bond is crucial to having success from the training program. At first I was hesitant about this and frankly a little reluctant. Why did I need to talk to everybody? Why couldn’t I just learn, rinse and repeat and get on with my life?

I came in with the “lone wolf” mentality as that is how I pretty much learned everything up until that point. I’m an introvert times 10, therefore every subject I picked up growing up, every class in community college, I mostly resorted to self-study. This made the contrast of the traditional school system and what I was learning here very evident, it was glaringly obvious. But that’s a topic for another post.

The classes, projects, the study groups and everything in between helped form a community bond that was hard to imagine going in. This helps when you’re learning something new and when you otherwise would be left searching for answers on your own.

Going back briefly to the basketball analogy, you can improve by practicing on your own for sure, but you will get even better by playing pickup games with others. This is what happens when you share your thoughts and doubts and you act as sounding boards for each other. The growth can become exponential.

Ideas For Building Community

Here are some ideas if you currently don’t have a community or a circle that will help you in your path to the career you want.

• Join an existing online room that tailors to your goals(Discord, Slack, Reddit, list goes on)
• Start a chat room for you and your friends to share opportunities and advice
• Take on more technical tasks at your current job, this will build supporters for you
• Reach out to someone you know that is in the career path you see yourself in
  
  

With just a little bit of creativity and initiative you can find many ways to stay connected which will aid in your goals to self development and getting into tech