By Meg Blaha 

Want to learn something new? If you’re like millions of Americans, you probably set a goal at the beginning of this year. Maybe you want to learn a new technology. Maybe you want to help out in your community. Or maybe you just want to meet new people in your area. If so, you’re in luck! We have an incredibly welcoming and active tech community here in the Greater Lansing area. Keep reading to learn some tips on how you can join and become more involved in your local tech community.

Tip #1 – Try a new Meetup

We have so many amazing tech groups in our area! All of which are happy to see new faces and full of people who meet to chat about new technologies in our industry.

One of those Meetups, the Lansing JavaScript Meetup recently started a new series aimed at teaching individuals new to front end development. In the last session, we walked through a collection of tools including how to install and use those tools to create content. Next month we will be talking about the basics of CSS and how to style your new creations.

Another beginner-friendly Meetup is the Lansing Tech Demo Night Meetup. Once a month makers join together to share cool things that they have built or interesting ideas they have had. Each meeting is different from the last and always inspires me to build something new.

If you’re interested in learning more about the different tech groups in Lansing, check out the free Meetups list https://www.lansing.codes/.

Tip #2 – Join Lansing Codes Slack

Not ready to commit to a new Meetup? Maybe your calendar is already too full but you still want to talk about tech happenings? Well Lansing Codes has a Slack workspace that is free and open to all. There are dozens of different channels devoted to technical topics such as JavaScript and DevOps along with tons of non-technical channels.

Join #volunteer if you want to learn about volunteer opportunities within the Lansing Codes tech community. Or check out #100daysofcode if you are looking for accountability for your coding side project. There’s also #book-club if you’re a bookworm (or just enjoy talking about books over a beer).

Tip #3 – Offer to present

Passionate about a topic and want to share it with others? Have a conference coming up and need to practice your presentation? Or maybe you just want to improve your presentation ability? Meetup organizers are always looking for presenters. If you have a topic idea, reach out to an organizer and offer to present. 9 times out of 10 they will be over the moon to have you present at an upcoming meeting.

Hopefully these tips help you break out of your shell and crush your New Year’s resolutions this year. I hope to see you at a future Meetup or Slack discussions!

About Meg: 

Meg is a software engineer at Vertafore. She loves to share her passion of front end development and software quality with others. She is a co-organizer of the Lansing JavaScript Meetup. You can find her on Slack at @MegBlaha or on Twitter at @Meg_The_Dev.