A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of helping to teach the Big Nerd Ranch Ruby on the Server course with fellow Nerd Zac Stewart. This opportunity has been a year in the making, and it didn’t disappoint.

When I left my career as a scientist to become a web developer, I had hoped to find a way to continue teaching. Big Nerd Ranch was the perfect job for me because it allowed me to build awesome applications with the newest technologies and also offered teaching opportunities in the form of week-long app development bootcamps.

As soon as I joined Big Nerd Ranch as a full-time developer, I expressed my interest in teaching for Big Nerd Ranch, and the chance finally arrived. In preparation for leading courses on my own in the future, I would share some of the teaching duties with Zac, the lead instructor. But when I arrived at Historic Banning Mills on Sunday for a week of teaching, I had no idea how much I would learn through the process.

What I Didn’t Know

During the bootcamp, I learned all about the things I don’t know as well as I should. When students ask questions, it’s as if they’re shining a flashlight in all the dark corners of my knowledge base. Maybe I had used a method hundreds of times before as a developer, but I might not have had to explain out loud in words how it works. I appreciated having these areas highlighted for me.

Turning on the Lightbulb

I also learned about all of the things that I do know and take for granted as a developer. It’s an interesting process to help a student walk along a path from not knowing to understanding.

For example, the way models connect to views through controllers (MVC) is part of basic knowledge for a Rails developer, but students must learn these connections over the course of the class. Watching the light bulbs turn on in the students’ heads as they connect the mental wires between several ideas was a delightful experience, as was being able to guide them through this process. I loved being able to share the journey with them.

Celebrating the Wins

Most importantly, I learned that a little encouragement goes a long way. The course material for the week is designed to be challenging. At times, the students would get stuck on a problem and need a little help to get moving again. I found that giving a high-five after students solved a problem was a nice way to celebrate the small victories.

I really loved my experience teaching at the Ranch and I’m very much looking forward to the next one. I hope you’ll join me.

The post Learning Through Teaching appeared first on Big Nerd Ranch.

Madison Ruby taught me that conferences are where you go to meet your heroes.

One thing that really drew me to Ruby as a language was its community, and when I first started learning to program, one of my greatest resources was Twitter. Because of its public and open nature, I was able to follow some of the thought leaders in the Ruby community and see what they were reading or reach out directly with questions. In this way, I felt like I was welcomed into the community with open arms.

And so when I started thinking about attending Ruby conferences, I reached out on Twitter for advice. I received lots of suggestions from respected developers for Madison Ruby, so I began investigating. Madison Ruby is what’s known as a “T-shaped” conference: the talks cover a broad range of topics with a deep spike into the Ruby language. This allows the conference to have in-depth coverage of Ruby and Rails, along with a taste of other relevant or interesting ideas.

Then something exciting happened—the Madison Ruby organizers reached out to me (via Twitter, of course) and I was invited to tell my story at a pre-conference event called Hype Harvest. Given that the main purpose of the event was to raise money for the Nairobi Dev School, I was more than happy to contribute.

Not your usual conference

When the first morning of the conference kicked off with an improvised dance party, I knew Madison Ruby wasn’t going to be boring. How many other conferences have a gnome and a German Wheel between the talks?

The talk that Aaron Patterson delivered was a perfect example of the Madison Ruby style: serious Ruby and Rails, with a side of silliness. The talk covered how a few performance improvements in Rails were brought about indirectly while troubleshooting a bug. Other highlights included a Chef tutorial by Jason Garber and Steve Klabnik’s emotional telling of CLOSURE, the story of _why and his relationship with the Ruby community.

The conference wrapped up with an Iron Coder event, where the audience was able to see what some of the top developers could do given a few constraints and a short amount of time. The developers were required to build an app using Shoes and to involve music in some way. Although I would have prefered to see the thought processes of some of the greats while they were coding, it was still impressive to see the results.

Giving back

The first few days of Madison Ruby were dedicated to workshops to help attendees become better developers. One of the workshops was a RailsBridge event targeted to women interested in becoming Ruby on Rails developers. Because I know that even small events like this can change lives, I jumped at the opportunity to serve as a mentor for the event.

Working with the ladies at the event was inspiring and we were able to give each woman the tools she needs to start her journey as a developer. And as part of my Hype Harvest talk, I encouraged the other developers to continue giving back with events like RailsGirls and RailsBridge. My own career path is proof that the efforts to increase diversity and bring more women into the community are working.

And of course, it was great to represent Big Nerd Ranch and to meet people who had taken our classes or used our books to learn to program. I was excited to share how Big Nerd Ranch has helped me to become a better developer. I also brought along a few Nerd glasses and made some new friends.

The greatest part about Madison Ruby was getting to meet some of the amazing people in the Ruby community. I met some of my Twitter friends in real life, and I was able to chat with some of my Ruby heroes. My career as a developer is just starting, but Madison Ruby has inspired me to become a better developer so that I can continue to give back.

The post Madison Ruby 2013: A Community of Coders appeared first on Big Nerd Ranch.

How many interns do you know with a Ph.D.? This summer, I may have become the first.

A passion for learning and teaching

I’ve spent most of my adult life patiently and diligently earning higher education degrees: first a bachelor’s in chemistry, then a doctoral degree in physical chemistry. Growing up, I loved solving problems and building things, and studying chemistry and going to grad school allowed me to nourish those curiosities. I felt like I never wanted to stop learning. Along the way, I also developed a love for teaching. It’s an amazing feeling to be able to share something new with others and in some way change the course of another’s life through knowledge. And so a career as an academic professor seemed like the perfect fit for my love of tinkering and teaching.

But when I finished graduate school and the time came to find a tenure-track position, I began to really assess my priorities. As much as I loved teaching bright students and solving hard problems in the lab by designing and running experiments, fulfilling this career goal would require serious compromises: most tenure-track positions require relocating to a new state and a lifelong commitment to one university. The inflexibility and relocation requirements helped me realize that academia might not be the ideal path for me.

A New Path

In the meantime, I started learning to program, first by building my personal website, and then for fun while working on a side project to help dog owners find dog walkers in their neighborhoods. The quick progression of my technical ability and the serious shortage of skilled developers led me to consider a new career path as a programmer, especially as the quality of life for developers and the flexible work environment seemed to align well with my priorities.

Because Big Nerd Ranch plays such a significant role in the Ruby on Rails community in Atlanta, it wasn’t long before I was introduced to the Nerd way of life. My first encounter with Big Nerd Ranch was at the Rails Girls workshop in Atlanta. The feeling of being in a room full of women learning to code was inspiring. Although I already had some programming experience, the Rails Girls event at Big Nerd Ranch gave me the encouragement I needed to finalize my decision to leave academia.

In the days following the event, I began to plan my transition from scientist to developer. I continued working on my personal side projects and I attended Big Nerd Hack Nights and the local ATLRUG meetup. The Ruby community in Atlanta and the developers at Big Nerd Ranch were extremely supportive; it seemed like everyone I met wanted to help. I started to feel like part of the community and I gained enough confidence to begin looking for developer positions in Atlanta.

Building skills

Due to my lack of a formal education in computer science, I assumed it would be difficult to make the switch. Luckily, Big Nerd Ranch gave me a shot at becoming a developer by hiring me as an intern. A summer internship was just the opportunity I needed to build confidence and to prove my skills as a developer. During the internship I was able to work on internal projects as well as external client projects. I worked closely in a team of other developers to ensure that I was shipping excellent code and that my clients were happy with the results. Even though I was just an intern, I was already starting to feel like a real, professional developer and part of the Big Nerd Ranch team.

My internship has nurtured my progress towards becoming a professional developer. Every day I get to tackle new challenges and build awesome things. I’m constantly learning from those around me and I also get to do a little teaching. When I was offered an opportunity to follow up the internship with a position as a full-time developer, I enthusiastically took it.

Big Nerd Ranch feels like home to me. I can’t imagine a better place to grow and learn and I am looking forward to starting my career as a developer here.

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