#LatinaGeeks partnered with Intuit on Thursday, August 26th to present an enriching virtual opportunity for Latinas to learn JavaScript.
According to a TrustRadius Women in Tech Report for 2021, “Women of color are less confident than white women about their promotion prospects—and that gap has increased by 3X over the past year. Also, 37% of women of color in tech feel that racial bias is a barrier to promotion.” One way to combat this is to continue learning which is a big proponent as to why #LatinaGeeks offers workshops such as this one to promote acquiring more tech skills. Moreover, partnering with companies like Intuit, who offer opportunities for Latinx employees through their Latino ERG, Intuit Latinos Network helps create change starting from inside the organization, outward.
Samantha Monteiro from Intuit walked attendees through coding JavaScript on GitHub during this hands-on workshop. JavaScript is a scripting or programming language that allows you to implement complex features on web pages — every time a web page does more than just sit there and display static information for you to look at — displaying timely content updates, interactive maps, animated 2D/3D graphics, scrolling video jukeboxes, etc. — you can bet that JavaScript is probably involved. It is the third layer of the layer cake of standard web technologies, two of which (HTML and CSS) we have covered in much more detail in other parts of the Learning Area. Some common programming features are:
- Store useful values inside variables. See example where a new name is asked to be entered then store that name in a variable called name.
- Operations on pieces of text (known as “strings” in programming). In this example, take the string “Player 1: ” and join it to the name variable to create the complete text label, e.g. ”Player 1: Chris”.
- Running code in response to certain events occurring on a web page. Here is an example of a click event to detect when the button is clicked and then run the code that updates the text label.
It is an interpreted, client-side event-based language as well as a dynamic, lightweight and case-sensitive language.
This interactive workshop started with the basics and attendees were able to hear a little bit about the history, the advantages and the limitations of JavaScript.
A free GitHub account can be created and any coding language can be displayed through GitHub.
Samantha taught attendees how to create an event, essentially click a button, on a test webpage. She described each step thoroughly so attendees could have an overview of all the steps that are comprised in coding with JavaScript. Attendees raised their hands asked questions and even cheered each other on and shared resources in the event chat! Attendees walked away with a thorough knowledge of how to code a website through GitHub in the JavaScript language and can now bring this to their lines of work (or a hobby) to continue their JavaScript education.
Kimbra Brookstein, who is also a #LatinaGeeks board member and our sponsor from Intuit, presented on Intuit’s growth opportunities in business such as Intuit Careers, Tech Women @ Intuit. Ruby Sherman, Site Co-Chair from Intuit’s Latino ERG, Intuit Latinos Network, shared how the ILN strategy fosters an environment of diversity and inclusion from the inside out at Intuit. All of Intuit’s ERG’s focuses on contributing to communities their representing and have committees who drive initiatives like this one! They grew globally since last year and have given members the opportunity to be leaders.
Thank you, Intuit, as your partnership with #LatinaGeeks has been directly beneficial to our community. View a recap of our previous sessions with Intuit in our previous blogs here.
We are excited to review our member’s feedback to plan out our next events with your input in mind!
This workshop was focused on our amigas who are in all levels of coding, read what our attendees had to say about our event with Intuit:
“I most liked how Samantha shared the slides with the image of the skeleton. I will always remember that HTML is like a skeleton.”
“The presenter was fantastic! The group support, made me feel so welcome.”
“I learned a shortcut to edit on GitHub using the “.” feature.”
“I will be using this new found skill/knowledge as my first break through into the tech world and my future career in tech.”
Special thanks to the instructors and for the continued support from Intuit:
- Samantha Monteiro; Software Engineer 2 – PCG
