The First Event I Hosted

Picture from the first event I ever hosted, November 13 2016

The first event I hosted was during my second year of university almost eight years ago. During that time, I took a semester off school to learn how to code. I spent my days at my childhood home self-learning programming and working on projects on FreeCodeCamp. Learning to code is a tough journey and I was studying by myself, I had no one to ask questions or share my struggles with. There wasn’t a coding community that existed in my city either. So I decided to start my own.

I started the first FreeCodeCamp Brampton chapter at LAB B, a now-defunct entrepreneurial coworking space. I promoted it on meetup.com, Facebook, and FreeCodeCamp’s website. In the days leading up to the event, my friend Harman, who ran LAB B, said to me, “I invited my brother-in-law to your event on Sunday, please don’t suck.” Thanks for the encouragement Harman.

Sunday arrived, it was a brisk, sunny November morning, it was the day of the event. I bought two packs of TimBits and stole a tin container housing various types of tea from my family kitchen. I cleaned up the venue and arranged the tables. Then the guests started to trickle in, 10 in total. I gave my intro speech and we went to work. Some people were coding on their own, some were pairing up and asking questions, and others were just socializing. We were all on the same journey after all. We wanted to get better as programmers whether to improve our craft or make a career switch. As the event came to an end, many people thanked me for organizing this community. They too were looking for something similar and they were grateful that it now existed.

Driving home from that first event, I felt a warmth in my heart. I did it. I organized my first event. I met many cool people and everyone seemed to enjoy it too. Anyone who’s hosted an event understands the gratifying feeling after an event. It’s the feeling that all the time, stress, and energy we put into organizing the event was worth it. And I’ve been hooked ever since.