Experience: My roommate, who is also doing an online bootcamp (Bloc), asked if I’d like to go to a Women Who Code study group with her. The hope was that we’d meet some new people, eat a *free* dinner, and get a little work done. The only drawback? This study group was in Oakland. This actually wasn’t that bad, as the location is right by the 12th St BART stop.

The study group is regularly held in two small rooms at Clef, a tech company that works with two-factor user authentication. Clef generously provides food, which wasn’t pizza!! It was delicious vegetarian Chinese food, which was awesome, but hardly enough food for the dozen or so women who showed up.

So, this used to be a JavaScript only study group, but they opened it up to any type of programming. Everybody was working on a variety of projects, including JavaScript, Python, Ruby and SQL. While in theory this sounds great – very chill and open, where you might learn something new … in practice it was incredibly frustrating. Nobody could really help each other, because we were all learning and working on different things.

Verdict: It was empowering being around other women who were on a similar path, but I wouldn’t go back to this particular event. It wasn’t worth the lengthy BART ride to Oakland, and I didn’t get much accomplished study-wise. Women Who Code’s SF chapter has Ruby-focused study groups in the city. That might be more my speed considering what I’m working on.