Monica Powell didn't have the most straightforward path to her first job as a developer. She took a couple of years of graphic design in college, took a computer science class, joined a student-led web development agency, and then joined a tech startup where she did email marketing and development. At that point, Monica knew that she wanted to be a developer, but she knew too much to attend a boot camp and not enough to get a job. So, she took classes, landed an internship, and then eventually got hired as a web developer. Meetups were an important part of Monica's development. When she was in college, she'd attend meet up events to get an opportunity to get off campus and see how people are using technology. She gravitates to women in tech events since she's always found those events to be safe places for her to learn new technologies and meet other people. As of November 2018, Monica is now organizing a meetup called "React Ladies" in NYC!Contributing to open-source was also important for Monica. Open-source de-mystifies the software that you use. You can look through the source-code of any package that you're using in your project. There's also plenty of opportunities to contribute, and it doesn't have to be code, many projects need contributions to their documentation as well.Transcript"Personal Growth From Open-Source And Meetups With Monica Powell" TranscriptResourcesaprilzero.comReact Ladies MeetupCode NewbieReact Conf 2019ToastmastersWrite/Speak/CodeGlobal Diversity CFP DayMonica PowellTwitterGithubDev.toWebsiteMediumLinkedInJoel HooksTwitterWebsite