Virtual Coffee, December 2024 - Creative Community

Hey Friends!

Time for some hobbies! Last month we went all in on writing articles and sharing our word with a wider audience. But now at the end of the year we want to take some time for our passions, hobbies, games, and the little things that provide us joy.

📆 What's happening at Virtual Coffee

November Recap

💡Monthly Theme & Challenge: Writing!

Based on the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) Challenge, this challenge was the tech and non-tech take on writing and working together towards the goal while posting on our own blogs. Thank you to all the community members who participated!

To view all of the details of how this year's challenge went, check out the November 2024 challenge page.

December is the time for fun!

💡Monthly Theme & Challenge: Creative Community!

Let's make some space for the other parts of ourselves.

Devs are more than just the code we write. This challenge is all about embracing self-expression. Give back to yourself by indulging in something just for fun. Share the art, music, poetry, sports, games, or other hobbies that spark your joy. We spend so much time grinding away on understanding things in the tech space. Let's make some space for the other parts of ourselves. In this challenge, we encourage folks to spend time working on things that aren't necessarily code-specific or using code to improve other hobbies and outlets.

Learn more about this challenge in this blog post.

To view all of the details of this year's challenge, check out the December 2024 challenge page.

☕🪑 Coffee Table Events

• Tech Interview Study Group (Mondays at 4:00 PM ET)

• Accountabilibuddies (Tuesdays at 7:00 PM ET | Thursdays at 9:00 AM ET)

• The Pack Hunt (Tandem Job Hunting) (Wednesdays at 10:00 AM ET)

• Data Structures and Algorithms (DSA) Office Hours (Wednesdays at 4:00 PM ET)

• Feelings Friday (Fridays at 8:00 PM ET)

• Frontend Friday Folks fighting CSSBattle.dev (Fridays at 11:00 AM ET)

📅 Weekly Async Events

• Mondays: Goal-setting post in #goals-and-wins

• Tuesdays: Trivia in #game-night

• Wednesdays: Midweek check-in in #general

• Fridays:

  • X (formerly Twitter) chat and gratitude post in #general

• Practical Deep Learning Study Group

☕ Official Virtual Coffee Events

• Virtual Coffee (Tuesdays at 9:00 AM ET | Thursdays at 12:00 PM ET)

• Async Twitter Chat (Weekly chat begins every Friday at 9:00 AM ET)

Note: These are the currently scheduled times for these events at the time of this publication. Please check the official VC #announcements Slack channel, or other noted channels, for any updates and links to event rooms. For the full list of events, check out our events page.

🎙️ The Podcast is Back!

Check out our latest podcasts from season 10 here!

🆕 New Career Focus Channels Alert

We've added three new private channels — Senior+, Mid-level, Early-career — to our Slack for peer-to-peer conversation, because we know that it's good to be able to support and nurture conversations specific to your career level. If you're interested in joining the one you identify with most, DM Bekah or Meg on Slack.

🤝 Volunteering at VC

We're very excited to continue open membership with the support of our active volunteers! All our active volunteers have an invite to send out to someone interested in joining Virtual Coffee. If you're interested in joining the volunteer team, check out some the roles here!

✨ Member Content Highlights

Our members are making the internet a better place with their words and wisdom!

Articles

• The Ultimate Networking Guide for Programmers - Victoria Lo

• How I Spent My Time After Getting Laid Off - Neha Maity

• Why Accessibility Is Important - Sarah Dye

• Sophisticated Speed to Text - David Akim

• Lessons, Growth, and Goodbyes: My Time With Scrimba Bootcamp - Micha Rodriguez

🏆 Member Wins

• Have to settle a few details, but I got approval from my manager to enroll in a class here at CMU next spring. - Josh

• Today I reached 600 Kata in Codewars and halfway to 4 kyu!  The more 7 kyu difficulty problems I do, the more JavaScript concepts make sense. - Aaron

• My article got in top 7 must read DEV  articles. - Chris

👀 What our members are up to

• Chris J. does a weekly post for goals of the week.

• Dominic Duffin co-hosts ArtTechChat on Twitter every Sunday at 1:00 PM ET.

• Ray Deck is co-hosting a vid-pod about low code/no code solutions on YouTube!

• Michael Jolley is streaming on twitch!

💻 Resource Highlights!

Monthly Challenge: Creative Community - Ayu Adiati

🏆️ Sponsors

Level Up Financial Planning helps techies like you take your financial confidence to the next level. It’s real financial planning to help you reach your goals and gain clarity on what actions you need to take now to maximize your tech career. Level Up even has a podcast where you can hear about some of the strategies he uses with his clients. Check out http://levelupfinancialplanning.com and you can get that link in our show notes.

If you're a member and you’d like to give a Lunch & Learn or Workshop, you can submit your idea here.

Have a question, suggestion, or want to nominate someone’s act of kindness or blog post? Email us at [email protected].