Attending Meetups

I attend a lot of user group meetups. I have been doing it ever since I attended my first event back when I was in my first year of college. I went to all the user group meetups on the internet, regardless of the technology. I was keen to learn everything and expose myself to different technologies. However, technology was not the only thing I’ve gained from joining these events. I also made connections with people who were already in the industry.

I want to share a couple of things to remember when attending meetups or any similar events.

Expose yourself to technology and its undercurrents.

If you ever hear something you do not know, jot it down and keep it for later so your mind does not focus on that point during the talk.

I recently joined an AWS meetup and the speaker was talking about AWS ECS and Fargate. As he discussed, I started to hear terminologies that I never heard of or seen yet. One thing he mentioned was AWS Firecracker. I have absolutely no idea what it is about. I quickly wrote it down in my pocket notebook, and then continued to listen so I did not miss out on its technicalities. Only after the talk, did I try to piece it together once I already had a good grasp of the service.

Be curious. Ask Questions.

During a talk there will be some ideas and questions juggling through your mind. Take note of those questions and ask attendees or the speaker about them.

Talks will not cover a lot of ground. These talks exist to get you aware and spark your interest in the current technologies.

One great thing about asking questions is that you can ask detailed questions and you can go as technical as you like and people will gladly explain it to you. It is still up to you how you want to learn the subject.

Meet people. Create connections.

This has to be the most valuable thing that anyone should do in a meetup. It’s all about connections. The stories you hear from people will help you learn more about the industry. Also, every person that you meet will have a different story. This will give you more insights into how to navigate your career.

People are generally excited about their projects and they are more than happy to share them with you. They’ll tell you about their day-to-day work, projects they’re working on, obstacles that they encountered, and what they’re excited about. These are stories that you could learn from.

That’s everything from me for now.

I would like to know if you are attending meetups, or have an interest in going to one and what meetup group would it be?

Cheers!

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