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I wrote briefly about my experience taking my Red Hat class and trying to rally my classmates to create a study group.

Around the same time, I came across Women In Linux. They meet weekly and talk about Linux (Great!), continuously growing your skills, wealth building, and keeping an eye out on the direction of tech. Since my class only met on Thursdays and Saturdays, I supplemented the other days with WIL YouTube videos. The two days of class just felt so far apart that I’d forget that I had signed up in the first place. And, coupled with us receiving the learning materials sometimes the night before, sometimes several days after, I didn’t feel like we were being setup for success overall. I did find value in the course because I’ve wanted an excuse to learn Linux, but I think it could’ve been handled a lot smoother.

Eventually, I started attending WIL meetups. Despite the name, the group is open to anyone and everyone willing to learn. Everyone is very supportive, because ultimately they want us to win. I felt inspired by that. A few weeks ago, someone in the group mentioned they were looking for a study partner. Maybe I was feeling shy but I didn’t say anything. I let my chance slip.

I had been talking with my therapist about focusing more energy into myself and discovering a third place. So, the next time around when De asked for wins/stucks, I said I was looking for a study group. I first matched up with the person looking for a group the previous week, and then another person asked to join, and then another one, and then another one. Soon I had about 10 people willing to sit in and study. And, I was like, “Damn? That’s all I had to do?”. I mean, I did ask in my class, so I just assumed that wasn’t my group - those weren’t my people. Life happens. But, just raising my hand and saying, “Hey, I need…”, “I’m having trouble with…”, really got me thinking about all of the missed opportunities I’ve had in elevating myself. I’ve been so conditioned to doing things on my own, that I’ve overlooked being part of a community. On the flipside, if someone asks me for help, I’m there. Being a loner as served me well at various points in my life, but I see the value of creating a circle.

Currently, our group meets three days a week (Mon/Thurs/Sat) for at least 3 hours at a time. We do labs, we help attendees get the correct setup, and more importantly, we’ve created a space for us to fail without judgement.

And, after each meeting, I create a terminal recording of what we did. That way we keep track of what we did, and if someone (including myself) wanted to review a topic we covered, we’ve got a recording. As I write this I’m reminded of Scott Hanselman’s talk of scaling yourself.

Below, I’ve included just a couple of recordings that I created. One big thing I was having issues with initially was creating repos. (1) what the hell are they? (2) what do I need them for?

Now I have the process memorized, and I even created a script to reset my environment so that I can create them over and over again.