Learning in a community

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# Learning in<br> a community

## 'S Wonderful 'S Marvelous

### Vebash Naidoo

[<i class="fab fa-twitter" role="presentation" aria-label="twitter icon"></i>@sciencificity](https://twitter.com/sciencificity)<br/>

[<i class="fab fa-twitter" role="presentation" aria-label="twitter icon"></i>@RLadiesJozi](https://twitter.com/RLadiesJozi)<br/>

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# Who am I?

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???
- A nerd, and a proud R loving nerd at that
- Co-organiser of RLadies Johannesburg and on the AfricaR leadership team - what is R? and RLadies ...
R is a programming language and people often refer to it as a statistical programming language. It is that but I would argue it is a language that can be used by people in many disciplines. For analysis purposes it can be used to get a better look at your data, reproduce research etc. 
RLadies is an organisation dedicated to increasing gender diversity in the R ecosystem whether this be using it for your analyses, or going further and presenting at conferences, sharing your work via blogs and books, or developing packages which are little self contained functionality that enhances the R ecosystem.
- I'm a mum and that often means visiting some far out places

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# Who are you?

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    <h3> You're on a journey <h3>
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???
But ...  in a vast new world ... It can be daunting
--

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    <h3> You love technology </h3>
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???

You probably love technology and the increased productivity it has given you, as well as the increased connection with people near and far, but perhaps some, if not most of you, feel that the digital divide is already too wide and you're struggling to be a maker. Or I could be wrong, and you've all said "challenge accepted" to closing the digital divide and you're looking to find a safe space to learn, grow and get stuck in.

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    <h3> You're needed in tech spaces </h3>
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???

I'd argue tech spaces need you - people from social sciences and humanity desperately, to shape the future of this space with your ideas and knowledge and empathy.

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## My journey into tech<br> started off 💔 😱<br> but ends up 🥰 💌

???
I actually went to university to study chemical engineering
but I failed technical drawing, and I also was not doing
so great at other subjects that was usually my forte, for example
mechanics (highly mathematical and related to physics). So I had to make the decision to quit and change degrees - I was stong at Maths so I decided that would be one part of my degree and programming was also starting to become more prevalent a vocation so I thought let me try CS 1. I fell in love immediately. I felt like a wizard and a detective all in one. I think it spoke to the lazy part of me - automating things freed up time for other passions, and I loved that code could do that for me. I often joke with my team that I chose this career due to my laziness, and I partly think it is true but for the sake of a good spin let's call it "my drive for efficiency".

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## Little did I know that the hard work<br> had yet to start

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???
The tech world is, to put it mildly, not really inviting for women or minority genders. If you can't see the pic on the right shows a sign in the door that says "we are open the door is just very heavy". And that is how tech spaces feel, it's predominantly a brotopia. As a woman or minority gender we often feel like the gif on the left which shows Judy disappearing when she sits down, and while we don't really want to loom over everyone like the gif on the right shows, we kinda want to be somewhere in the middle.

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## But let's not pretend ...

Your foray into tech / digital spaces is going to be even harder than mine!

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- Which is why I would encourage you to join communities 👥  👥 👥.
- And while I would love if you choose to join [R-Ladies](https://bit.ly/rladies-jozi-meetup-page) there are many other communities that may be suitable for you:
  * [Digital Humanities Slack Space](https://escalator.sadilar.org/post/connect-with-the-community/)
  * [The Carpentries](https://carpentries.org/)
  * [R4DS - R for Data Science Slack community](http://r4ds.io/join)
- I have heard it described as "free night school".
]

???
- These spaces truly feel like there are no stupid questions.
- It's less lonely learning with others.
- You will find people being vulnerable, and that gives you permission to be vulnerable too.
- You will find lots of people from non-tech backgrounds learning out loud, and doing incredible things with programming because they combine their humanities background with analysis and research and product building that benefits society.

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## Benefits

- Learn for free. E.g. many meetups on [Meetup.com](https://www.meetup.com/).
- Meet new people from diverse backgrounds.
- Get a job.
- Find a mentor (early career), or be a mentor (good prep for leadership roles).
- Talk through usually hard to talk about subjects:
      * What's an appropriate salary for someone with X years experience in Y industry?
      * How to negotiate for a better offer / salary etc.?
      * Use a peer as a sounding board before the real deal.
- Apply for diversity scholarships - have community proof read and critique application.
- Use the safe space of the meetup to dry-run upcoming talks.
- Be invited to:
    * give talks at conferences.
    * host conference sessions.
    * co-organise conference.
- Give back.

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## Benefits (continued)

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#### Feel supported, inspired and uplifted
#### Feel like you've found your village
#### Yay 🎉, I made friends as an adult
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<br>

<img src="images/friends.gif" alt="gif showing the characters of Zootopia posing for a picture together" width="500px">
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???
Are there any down sides? If you suffer, like me, from social anxiety then it can be really daunting to feel safe in any space. You worry about many different things - for e.g. I often worry about my conversational skills, my likeability, my knowledge, etc.
But I do it, and get out there because the plusses outweigh the minuses

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## Everyone knows more than me

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.footnote[
- [@BecomingDataSci's Tweet inspiration](https://twitter.com/BecomingDataSci/status/1379587110966075396)

- Illustrations by [@lizandmollie](https://twitter.com/lizandmollie)
]

???

Social media and technology have had the downside in that we can now compare ourselves to the millions of people out there and that can be at times demotivating. I would say try to always remind yourself of the cartoon by Liz and Mollie on the top corner - don't measure yourself with someone else's ruler.
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## Learning in a<br>community<br>makes you feel<br>heroic 🦸‍♀️

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[Artwork by Allison Horst](https://www.allisonhorst.com/)
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## Suggested follows

- [Twitter for R Programmers](https://www.t4rstats.com/), [Twitter for Scientists](https://t4scientists.com/)

???
Why?

In my opinion most people are using it to learn and teach, especially in the R community. Loads of people are saying what they're learning and with vulnerability e.g. there are #TIL (Today I learnt), #howto, #MIM (Mistakes I made). But you can just learn from these people and contribute when you feel safe to do so, because there are nasty people on social media and it can be discouraging to put out something you're super proud of and then have it diminished by some individual.
--

- `#TidyTuesday` on Twitter

???

Data visualisation + much more (data wrangling, how to deal with missing info etc.)

- [Sliced - Competitive Data Science](https://www.twitch.tv/nickwan_datasci)

???

From https://www.notion.so/SLICED-Show-c7bd26356e3a42279e2dfbafb0480073

"SLICED is like the TV Show Chopped but for data science. Competitors get a never-before-seen dataset and two-hours to code a solution to a prediction challenge. Contestants get points for the best model plus bonus points for data visualization, votes from the audience, and more." But you learn by seeing what the contestants are doing, and you pick up tips along the way, and you can go check out the contestants github or notebooks and you can learn after the stream.

- [Learn with @kierisi](https://www.twitch.tv/kierisi)

???
She has great material on starter data visualisations for #TidyTuesday plus she is busy learning out loud, which I really love.

- [<i class="fab fa-twitter" role="presentation" aria-label="twitter icon"></i>@BlkInData](https://twitter.com/BlkInData) or [website](https://blkindata.github.io/profiles/)

???
Most profiles from the US, but really inspirational in terms of diversity of disciplines etc.

- Teneika Askew - Analytics & Automation [<i class="fab fa-twitter" role="presentation" aria-label="twitter icon"></i>@teneikaask_you](https://twitter.com/@teneikaask_you)

???
An individual really trying to get women and underrepresented groups access to information on certificates, free learning and upskilling opportunities.

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# Acknowledgements and Thank You

- [Unsplash for most pictures](https://unsplash.com/)
- [<i class="fab fa-twitter" role="presentation" aria-label="twitter icon"></i>@lizandmollie](https://twitter.com/lizandmollie) for the hand drawn pictures in some of the slides (and generally as a stop by to remember to take care of yourself, that you matter, and you are always worthy).
- [SADiLaR for the opportunity to speak](https://www.sadilar.org/index.php/en/)
- [Alison Hill - inspiration for slides](https://twitter.com/apreshill)

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# R Resources

- [R-Ladies Johannesburg Meetup](https://www.meetup.com/rladies-johannesburg/): we're actually R-Ladies Gauteng but the admin to rebrand is too much 😄
- [R-Ladies community slack](https://rladies-community-slack.herokuapp.com)
- [R-Ladies Global YouTube](https://bit.ly/rladies-global-youtube)
- [Coding Club](https://ourcodingclub.github.io/)
- [Psych R Resources](https://psyteachr.github.io/): Resources from the Psychology Modules at the University of Glasgow to use R.
- [Big Book of R](https://www.bigbookofr.com/): Find books and resources in a wide variety of disciplines.

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# Thank you!

### Find me at...

[<i class="fab  fa-twitter "></i> @sciencificity](http://twitter.com/sciencificity)  
[<i class="fab  fa-github "></i> @sciencificity](http://github.com/sciencificity)  
[<i class="fas  fa-link "></i> sciencificity-blog.netlify.app/](https://sciencificity-blog.netlify.app/)  
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