Chicago Community Introductions—Tell Us About Yourself Here!

Let’s get to know a bit about one another. Reply here and share as much as you’re comfortable with about yourself, your background, experience/interest in technology, other hobbies/interests, or anything else you’d like the community to know about you.

Hi, I’m Robert and I am one of the Chicago chapter study group admins. I have been programming professionally for many years, mostly back-end development and data integration (ETL) type work. I have written programs in HLASM, C, C#, and Java and have written code for the web using mainly PHP and Javascript. I’ve utilized the following database technologies: Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL.

I like to dabble in just about anything that I find that is interesting to me, but am by no means an expert in all of the languages and frameworks I’ve ever played around with; some of those include: Node.js, Python, CakePHP, Unity (VR development in C#).

I discovered freeCodeCamp back in late 2017 and immediately fell in love with its mission and decided to support it. I started working through some of the curriculum at that time but ended up falling off because I did not dedicate myself to it. I’ve recently decided to make a commitment to both working through the curriculum and getting involved in the freeCodeCamp community, which has led me to where I am today.

I am currently strengthening my skills and learning more about Front-End development and would eventually like to learn more about areas I feel weak in, knowledge-wise, like UI/UX design and mobile application development.

I also volunteer at We All Code (formerly known as CoderDojoChi), a non-profit who is dedicated to teaching children how to code, and for Ignite Chicago, who are part of the Ignite Talks network and who are run as a non-profit in direct support of We All Code. I encourage you to check both of those Chicago organizations out as well. We All Code is always looking for volunteers (no experience required) and Ignite Chicago is a fun event—it is like a series of lightning TED Talk (10 speakers, 5-minutes each, 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds, about something the speaker is passionate about).

I am currently running the Sunday study group meetups at the Capital One Cafe in the Loop. Watch for event posts here in the forum for upcoming meetups. I look forward to meeting as many of you as I can.

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I’m Scott Schmitt or @Schmittyapolis on Twitter. I’ve been a print designer for years and most of the code I have learned has been self taught. I look forward to being a part of this group for he socialization as well as the communal learning!

I live in Oak Park so if anyone else is from Oak Park, let me know and perhaps we can help each other out.

Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/scottschmitt/

This is gonna be a great group!

Scott

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Hi, I’m Camille. I work at a nonprofit in Chicago, where I do education research. I’m also a grad student part time in the learning sciences. Long-term I want to design and code digital learning tools. I’ve coded as a hobby (and have fallen off the wagon the past few months) and am looking forward to continuing the freeCodeCamp curriculum. I use R at work but want to get back into JavaScript and Python. So looking forward to being part of the Chicago community, and I’m hoping to catch some of the study group meetups soon!

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Hello, I’m Donald.

I have been a professional programmer for a while. But I mostly worked on applications with no graphical user interface for use in a batch environment.

I joined freeCodeCamp back in August of 2017 to learn more about web development. And I used the knowledge I gained to get involved with web application development at work.

But I still want more hands-on web development experience, so I am getting back into freeCodeCamp to do more projects.

You can take a look at my freeCodeCamp portfolio https://www.freecodecamp.org/silvernemesis and my GitHub profile https://github.com/SilverNemesis to see what I am working on outside of my job.

You can take a look at my LinkedIn profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/donald-fries/ if you want to get a general idea of what I do at work.

I look forward to getting to know everyone at the meetups, in our slack workspace, and in this forum.

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Hi friends!

I’m Ruchi, and I am also one of the Chicago chapter study group admins. I am a newbie developer, learning how to code (JavaScript, React, Node.js) through online resources like freeCodeCamp, CodeAcademy, and Udemy. I currently work for a PR firm downtown, and can’t wait to start my career as a developer!

I started learning how to code because I went back to college to study engineering physics. As a non-traditional student, the prospect of starting my thirties with considerable fresh debt was daunting. I realized in order to actually “practice” physics, I would need to also go to grad school, adding even more debt. I did notice that many physics majors who chose not to go to grad school would become programmers (since programming is a big part of our curriculum). I thought, “Well, why not cut the student debt and just… become a programmer?!” I dropped out a few weeks later and starting studying like it was my full time job. My short term goal is to become a back-end engineer. My long term goal is to become a project manager.

I’m passionate about women in STEM, technology in particular, and am a member of the Society of Women Engineers, Chicago Women Developers, and Women Who Code.

My other (and seemingly opposite) passion is fountain pens and stationary. I’m an active part of the Chicago fountain pen community and will try to pen-vangelize any chance I get!

I am currently running the Tuesday study group meetups at the Harold Washington Library in the Loop. Watch for event posts here in the forum for upcoming meetups. I look forward to meeting all of you!

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Hi! I’m Kathleen, and I am transitioning to tech from teaching English as a Second Language. I’m in a part time boot camp for data science but it includes quite a lot of web development, too. I’m learning a lot in the boot camp, but I also want to branch out and help with open source projects and get involved in the FCC community any way I can. Even though I am a little nervous that I don’t know enough to contribute, I’d still like to give it a go. I plan on joining the study group in the Loop the next time it meets on a Sunday, so see y’all there!

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Hi you all !!! … I recently moved to Chicago from Puerto Rico. I am a 20+ years of experienced bookkeeper that was yearning to make a career change but couldn’t tell into what. All I knew was that I wanted to do something else. But three years ago, back in Puerto Rico, I had the opportunity to attend an Intro to Web Dev course that introduced my into very basic HTML and CSS, and that experienced awakened my interest into tech as a career option for me. However, it was not until unplanned events in my life brought me into the wonderful city of Chicago, that I noticed it’s vibrant tech community, and that also helped me finally decide to plan to make my career change into tech a reality. I am currently studying JavaScript language basics to be able to pass a Technical Interview and hopefully be admitted to a Software Engineer Bootcamp. As I said, I am a new arrival into Chicago, and so have not much friends here yet, so I am very interested in meeting and making local good friends here in the tech community of Chicago. Finally, some ten years ago I had a part-time evening job as a bookkeeper professor at a community college in Puerto Rico, and even though was not well paid, it has been one of the most rewarding things I’ve done in my live; hence downstream I see myself becoming a mentor to contribute and help others learn tech work skills; but yeah, right now I am focused on learning, making good friends and having lots of fun along the way !!!

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Hello all. I am Lisa and I am a chain learner. I am the kind of person who feels very low if i am not learning something new and interesting every few weeks, but yes that does sometimes mean that i am also going more in breadth than in depth of subjects. But my pet areas of training are management studies and PR supervising. I am extremely thrilled to be part of the FCC community and look forward to learning so much and perhaps amassing depth of knowledge too.

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All protocol observed (I am not from Chicago but I will like to contribute)

Hello everyone, I am Dada and I am a certified digital marketer, I have always want to learn coding but i don’t really know how to go a bit about it. I did a lot of research about some of the best free coding websites (I think, that should be around December last year) in which I find freecodecamp. Initially, I was a little bit sceptical as to be sure if it truly worth it, but I am happy that I follow my instinct. Now I am currently learning front-end development and the challenges is in fact, to say the least, challenging!!!

I use hangout at my mail: cutegentility@gmail.com

Happy coding all!!
cheers,

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Hello there Chicago,

My names is Matthew and I’m hoping to learn programming for my personal ventures. I had been programming with vanilla javascriptm html and css since I was 14, and recently got back into programming learning React, Node.js with the help of freeCodeCamp.

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Hello…hope to learn too…

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HI All :wave:

For those who found our Chicago study group here back when these forums where hosting the local meetup chapters I just wanted to let you all know the alternative places to find and connect with the Chicago study group:

We are having another in-person meetup in the Loop this Sunday (1/19) if anyone here is interested.

Hello I’m Carolyn, I have made websites, for more than 25 years. Learning is still fun , interesting, & all things good!

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Great to know that, Carolyn. I hope you could also share you’re leanings to esp. on how you build those websites.

Why I built them is easier to explain, than how I did it Lol
First started building websites, for a way for a small business group of inventors to " broadcast to the world".
Learned basic, then dos code, on through html 1-5, basicly on my own.
We didn’t have the resources that are here for today’s coders to learn, on the web. I think that having a “central point” of learning like FreeCodeCamp, is the greatest support possible, for computer learning.

In the beginning days, PC world magazine, and actual books, were our resources.
excuse me if I am still not “up on conversational skills”, very new to me, but I am here, I am happy to be here, & I am learning !

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