First Week at Launch Code

This week was the first week I spent volunteering for Launch Code. My first day, Wednesday, I spent mostly getting introduced to the building and the sort of lessons that are available on their website. One of the women who interviews potential candidates for working with the organization gave me a tour of the space, showing me around the large lecture area and the smaller classrooms and offices, and afterwards I met up with the woman I was working under, Hayley, who had just gotten out of a meeting. She asked me a couple of questions about what I knew about Launch Code and what particular aspect of the organization I wanted to contribute to before getting the both of us computers and showing me around the website. She had to leave early to drive down to Kansas City for a graduation ceremony being held for some of the students in one of Launch Code's classes, so for the remainder of the time I was told to familiarize myself with the website and start one of the online lessons that they provide. I chose to learn some Python, and was able to grasp a few concepts before I was done for the day. Thursday I came in, this time with my own computer, and wasn't given too much to do, so I continued to learn Python using Launch Code's online textbook and did some small coding projects as practice (I was told that there would be more things to work on next week after the craziness of getting ready for graduation was over with). I learned some more about Python and created a couple of programs that did simple things like calculate area, find the highest value in an array, or delete every instance of the word "bee" from a body of text. The last day of the week, Friday, I similarly wasn't given a whole lot to do, so I began to learn some HTML on the Launch Code website and began two programs: one that resembles a text-based choose-your-adventure game, and one that was a chatbot, responding to simple conversation. I also started a text document to practice the HTML that I was learning, figuring out how to do very basic actions like creating a colorful heading or making a numbered list. I'm definitely eagerly anticipating being given something to do specifically for the organization next week and am excited to hopefully help compile a database of helpful tutorials for the students in the Launch Code classes.