By Mia Hines
I remember the butterflies in my stomach on my first day at Kode with Klossy. I took those first steps into the classroom and the colorful explosion of my future, my future community, and my future superpowers began.
Kode with Klossy is a nationwide summer camp for 13-18 year-old girls to learn how to code. The camp was founded by supermodel, Karlie Kloss. The overall mission is to get more young women interested in S.T.E.M. fields and careers.
The camp is constructed by levels. Level 1—the entry level usually for all beginners to coding—teaches a student to code web apps using programing languages like Ruby and HTML/CSS. For Level 1, students participate by R-specs (which are somewhat like coding tests), labs (which are usually silly coding activities to practice what you learned), develop miscellaneous projects, and create their own web apps. The concept turns a three-month long web development boot camp’s curriculum into two short weeks. Sound stressful? It is, but it’s the good kind.
The first day of camp was a chaos of emotions: exhaustion, excitement, confusion, pride, and fear. For me, those emotions reappeared consistently every day of camp. One moment, I’m flying through code feeling like nothing can stop me. The next moment, an error appears and the hurricane of anxiety starts wracking my body. These terrifying moments tore me apart. I felt embarrassed and ashamed. Subconsciously, I was holding myself to these high standards that obviously no beginner could reach. As an overachiever and perfectionist, these were nightmares coming to life. But I got through it. Either by the trial or error technique, or by the instructors, instructor assistants, or new friends. I learned that things aren’t always perfect, but keep trying. It’s often uncomfortable, but when it’s finished you’ll be proud that you pushed yourself. However, if I ever needed a break from coding at K.W.K. there are a myriad of quirky games to play, and most importantly hilarious, incredible participants to play with.
If you ever decide to apply to Kode with Klossy, expect to come out of this experience with coding superpowers, a renowned sense of resilience, and so many inside jokes! Trust me, while working 9-to-5 with somebody on such a stressful platform as coding, you will become fast friends. Becoming fast friends, especially with nineteen girls, leads to a lot of great jokes and laughter. These friendships will last even past camp. We have such a supportive, tight-knit, and kickass community of future female leaders, innovators, and game-changers that it’s an honor to call them friends.
After the summer, I ended up coding a website for a local small business. Then I did that again and again. Through these experiences, I learned more coding via trial and error or through online articles, tutorials, and public coding discussion boards. I dabbled in Bootstrap (which I love), JavaScript, VB Script, and responsive HTML/CSS code. The more I learn and do, the desire to acquire more coding knowledge increases. A goal of mine is to launch a series of future web apps and to continue coding small businesses’ websites as well. KWK Level 2 will teach me JavaScript more extensively, and this will hopefully make my goal a reality.
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