This month on November 5th, I attended another NYC Code & Coffee meetup. This time it was at a new location in Park Slope, Brooklyn at The Yard Gowanus. It is usually a pleasant experience to be in Brooklyn, so overall I was excited to go to the meetup. This excitement, though, was also mixed with nervousness as networking was, while informal, another component to the purpose of this meetup. However, one of my main objectives is to go outside my comfort-zone, and going to similar meetups is a demonstration of that objective.

As is the convention at Code & Coffee, there is an introduction circle where everyone briefly introduces themselves, shares their tech stack, projects they are currently working on, and what brings them to this meetup overall.

(The introduction circle at NYC Code & Coffee meetup)

After the introduction circle, an individual on my left side introduced themselves to me (or re-introduced themselves when considering the intro circle: pick and choose your context), expressed interest in potentially collaborating in future projects, and learning more about my general interest in software development.

This initial encounter sparked a substantial dialogue where we not only learned that we both participated in the same tech program (but within different cohorts), and have mutual friends and acquaintances. We also grew up in similar neighborhoods as native New Yorkers and shared memories of our upbringings. It was especially cool to learn that he worked at a newspaper that I read as an adolescent, which contributed to the formation of my critical analysis of historic and current events.

I have to admit that it is quite fascinating to coincidentally meet people, and come to learn that you have so much in common than not: it’s a small world. I’m glad this person took the initiative to converse with me, and I look forward to continuing my conversations with this person.

After that extensive and great conversation, I noticed there was a group of people talking about blockchain technologies and the web 3 ecosystem. I joined the conversation, briefly introduced myself, and expressed interest in the topic at hand.

I gained several takeaways from the conversation, particularly on the subject of Rust:

The Rust programming language is gradually becoming a common tech tool to use when building decentralized applications within particular Blockchain ecosystems. It is increasingly becoming the alternative tech language to Solidity ( one the most used tech language in web 3).

While I have some familiarity with Rust, I was not aware of the increasing usage of Rust within the web 3 ecosystem. The conversation encouraged me to create time to learn the language, and low-level programming in general.

Networking overall remains a challenging experience for me. The anxious and nervous energy I feel is still quite prominent. However, this Code & Coffee meetup again was a great experience. I’m really glad to have connected with people that have an interest in collaborating in future projects, and people who have already been navigating and contributing to the web 3 space.