2013 in Review, Bullet Style

These year in review posts are all over the interwebs, but my favorite format has been Pam’s bullets. She recommends that you keep a .txt file throughout the year of your accomplishments. That way, when asked about accomplishments at a job interview or review, or just in your own personal reflection, you have something to reference. In lieu of that, Chad and I literally went through our entire past year of Google Calendar while remembering 2013 and planning 2014. I’ll try to keep my own bullet list this year so next year’s reflection doesn’t take as long.

In 2013, I: 

• began the practice of planning my year with Susannah Conway‘s Unravelling the Year Ahead workbook
• stopped taking UArts classes because I felt I could learn more affordably and just as well on my own
• participated in my first hackathon and surprised myself by speaking onstage at a tech event  — this felt like a really big deal for me (I also met some awesome people I still hang out with)
• took at least four Girl Develop It classes
• TA’ed at least three Girl Develop It classes (Responsive Design, Intro to HTML & CSS, and Intermediate CSS3 & HTML5), which were taught by Zoe, Jenn, and Cat
• unceremoniously stopped Street Stories to give more attention to my programming/web endeavors
• participated in an experimental Rails apprenticeship program
• helped organize (in some capacity) both ContentCamp & BarCamp Philly
• learned the ins & outs of both WordPress & Shopify development
• started getting paid to do web development professionally
• began coworking at IndyHall
• built my first Rails app for a client project
• traveled to New York (to see Then She Fell), Costa Rica, Connecticut, Arizona, Chicago, and Nashville
• bought my first Alt Summit ticket while standing in line at a snack counter at the Grand Canyon (no, really)
• attended the Philly Women in Tech Summit, the Wharton Web Conference, Alt for Everyone, STORY, Storyline, and what feels like countless tech meetups in Philly.

While 2013 certainly wasn’t as full of as many dramatic and obvious changes as 2012, I have come a long way. Sometimes it’s hard to see growth day to day, but when contextualized over an entire year, the progress I’ve made feels really significant. It’s been a year of subtle but pervasive change.