John Moon

At RailsBridgeBoston, I had the privilege of mentoring over 80 women interested in learning about programming. They all had different backgrounds, and eager to learn. It was very rewarding to explain and help others get started in programming.

It was cool to learn about the Ruby method ‘squeeze’ while I was teaching. It deletes all duplicates that are adjacent to each other. It really gave me a reality check of how much I have learned in the past 3 months at Launch Academy, but at the same time that there were still many things I didn’t know and wanted to learn.

As a mentor, one advice I gave all students was to stick it out. When I first started learning, it was so easy to give up when faced with a seemingly impossible problem. I say fight through! The art of programming isn’t to always have the answer, but to struggle through it. I know it may not seem true now, but it does get easier!

I highly recommend any women interested in technology to check out RailsBridge. It is free and a great introduction to programming, and all the mentors there are volunteering to share their knowledge with others.