Volunteering at PyBay 2023 Conference

Ziah — Wed, 11 Oct 2023 16:46:25 +0000

I enjoy gushing about my love of tech conferences with just about any person that I meet. I’m a very extroverted woman. I deeply enjoy meeting new people, learning more about their lives and careers, and maintaining sincere connections. At conferences, I love being surrounded by hundreds of people who are in attendance due to a common passion for tech. I’ve gone to in-person ones, virtual ones, and even hybrid ones. However, each time I’ve gone to one in the past, I’ve only signed up as an attendee. This time, I finally attended a conference as a volunteer and the experience was genuinely amazing!

So, some of you may be wondering, “What the heck is PyBay?” PyBay is an annual conference that takes place in San Francisco, CA, celebrating all students and professionals with a passion for Python development and theory. The PyBay Conference has been successfully organized each year since 2016 by the Bay Area Python Association. I was very lucky to attend the conference on Sunday, October 8th. This year, the volunteer team set up and oversaw the conference for over 200 attendees, including 26 speakers. From 12p to 8p (PST), we all were able to enjoy networking, catching up with friends and colleagues, building new friendships, sharing ideas and learning more about what can be achieved with Python!

Although the conference officially commenced at noon, volunteers convened at the venue around 9a to set up the site well before any of our guests arrived. Before the day of the conference, we were all sent information on what our tasks for the day would be. From setup, check-in, and code of conduct reporting to emceeing and takedown, volunteers were given concise duties to fulfill during the day in smaller teams to ensure that the event went smoothly (Spoiler alert: It did!). My job for the day was to announce speakers and act as support emcee. Specifically, my duties were to introduce each speaker before they provided their presentation during my “announcer time slot.” Additionally, I was to act as a support emcee when a different volunteer announcer was working during their time slot. This included being available in case the current announcer needed to momentarily step out, alerting the current speaker if they have 5 minutes or less left in their presentation, and to pass around a microphone to audience members during Q&A sessions.

Besides programming and advancing my knowledge of computer science, I am very fond of speaking into a microphone to a crowd. Even though I was excited to simply be in attendance at PyBay, my joy grew just by receiving this volunteer opportunity. It helped me understand that I have a desire to one day begin presenting my research and projects at tech conferences so I have the opportunity to teach the audience members something and to learn from any question they may have in response. Furthermore, I was simply dazzled by each presentation I was able to attend, especially those of Developer Advocates.

Conferences, along with other tech events, are some of the most crucial aspects of engaging in the tech community, in my opinion. Not only are you in a space to both teach and learn about computer science, but you can create new connections, obtain further information on companies’ projects and impact, and better realize where you are in your career and where you’d like to be next. In my journey, I have been a Software Engineer, Technical PM Assistant and Technical Consultant. Now, I am breaking into the DevRel world and starting a new journey towards becoming a Developer Advocate. Attending PyBay and working as part of the team who made it happen provided me with a deep sense of pride, confidence and belonging in the tech industry. It’s very easy to say that I plan to continue volunteering for the conference in each year to come.

If you’d like to learn more about the PyBay Conference or the Bay Area Python Association, please visit these links:
https://pybay.com/
https://www.bapya.org/

Have you attended a tech conference before? What do you look forward to the most? Tell us all about your experience in the comments below!

A Love Letter to Python

Ziah — Thu, 05 Oct 2023 17:52:45 +0000

I began my programming journey in undergrad during the spring semester of 2018. The first programming class I took in undergrad was titled Intro to Python. I was a first-year student, still 18 years old, and finally achieving a goal that I had set years prior. Although I have played around with other languages before—C#, Ruby, HTML/CSS—I was far too green to really understand what I was doing. Additionally, I had no instructor to guide me nor answer any questions that I had. So, during this spring semester, it was finally my time to shine.

Python was the first programming language that I have formally learned and built applications with. I found it to be one of the easiest languages to learn as a newbie since its syntax is comparably uncomplicated, it has an extensive set of libraries and is a great way to introduce students to programming with an interpretive language. Moreover, you can also learn the basics of Object-Oriented Programming before learning an OOP language like Java or C++. By the end of the spring semester, I was able to create simple data structures—lists, dictionaries, tuples— and learn why Python is so largely utilized. Web scraping, data analysis, and server architecture were just the beginning of the many concepts that Python conquers so eloquently.

After learning Python, I learned Java, C/C++, JavaScript and several other languages to date. I will admit, though, that it was a huge learning curve switching from Python to Java due to how strictly OOP it is. While exploring the other aforementioned languages, I learned that Python wasn’t as perfect as I had originally assumed. Compared to Java, it’s not nearly as fast or powerful. From creating simple GUIs to large projects like MineCraft, Java has definitely taken the world by storm since its birth in 1995. Nevertheless, it still has its disadvantages when compared to Python and its dynamic nature.

As many of you may know, Python was born in 1991 (Which is insane for me to consider, along with Java because they’re both older than me!) and has grown exponentially since. In the last 32 years, its library sets have blossomed, open source Python resources are now ubiquitous, and developers continue to push the boundaries of Python as we currently know them.

I knew that I wanted to join the software development community since I was in the 8th grade. Although I didn’t have exposure to computer science theory prior to undergrad, I am very happy with the journey that I have traveled. Learning Python has allowed me to understand the basics of software development, create applications & websites, dip my toes into the world of Artificial Intelligence and so much more. Now, as an early career dev, I can utilize my years of work and practice to create anything I set my mind to. Which is really awesome to be able to say! Python set the foundation for my software development career, and for that, I genuinely love it and am very grateful for it. I am thrilled to see where it’ll lead me next!

DEV Community: Ziah

Volunteering at PyBay 2023 Conference

A Love Letter to Python