by Kinsey Ann Durham

I can honestly tell you that a RailsBridge workshop changed my life. I reluctantly attended my first RailsBridge workshop in November of 2012 with my two girlfriends. I decided to attend the workshop because I wanted to get better at my job of managing developers. I thought it would be great to get a taste of what developers actually did. I never thought that I could become a developer, however. It was really intimidating! My step brother is an awesome developer and when he would talk, everything was over my head and it seemed like he was speaking an alien language! I remember telling my Dad on the phone that I wanted to be around developers, something attracted me to writing code, but there was no way I could do it.

Attending my first RailsBridge workshop was awesome! I met a great network of people and even my future mentor. That’s when I started to build my network in the Ruby community, simply by attending this event. I remember telling my friend at the event that I was going to write code from now on!

It wasn’t that simple. I didn’t become a developer right away. Over one year, three RailsBridge workshops, an apprenticeship at thoughtbot, three conference talks later, I finally feel that I can call myself a developer! I am going to be working as the Teaching Assistant and developer for Galvanize’s gSchool. I get to mentor, teach, write code and most importantly, help others find their passion in writing code. I could not be more excited, and I have RailsBridge to thank for my newfound career! Thank you to all of the volunteers, organizers, sponsors. You truly are making a difference in many people’s lives!