Each month, Code the Dream celebrates one volunteer who has made a special contribution to our community. Our Volunteer of the Month is Darga Darga, a class mentor, practicum project lead, and curriculum volunteer over the past year.
Darga also wrote about his experience in a previous blog post, “How CTD Empowers Mentors with Flexibility.”
Tell us a little about yourself.
I’m a 43-year-old self-taught coder specializing in Frontend/React. I tried to learn to program four different times over a 15-year period before I finally started to believe I could really do it, and I didn’t get my first coding job until I was 37.
I hope my own experiences help me be more empathetic and insightful into the learning challenges faced by my students, and to accommodate a wider range of their backgrounds and learning styles.
Why did you get involved with Code the Dream?
Before I joined Code the Dream, my experience with mentorship had mostly been on an individual basis. Because CTD offers so many different ways to volunteer, it’s a great place for exploration! I’ve been able to continue working as a 1:1 mentor while also experimenting with teaching larger groups, reviewing assignments, overseeing group projects, and now contributing to the curriculum.
What has been meaningful about your experience with Code the Dream?
I’m consistently so amazed by my students – their curiosity, motivation, and incredible dedication to this program.
I also really value the relationships I’m building with students, CTD staff, and other volunteers. Code the Dream has such an important mission, and it’s wonderful to feel part of a true community of students, staff, and volunteers who believe in those goals 100% and can pursue them without reservation.
Anything else you’d like to share?
I really encourage anyone to get involved in CTD as a student, a volunteer, or even both at once! We all can help in more ways than we tend to realize, and I think a lot of students who are still early in their coding journeys would be really amazed at how much they can help someone who’s starting from scratch.
We also heard from several of Darga’s students on why they value him as a mentor.
“Darga was great at explaining and breaking down push and pull, forking , staging, and commiting. Wonderful attitude, and extremely patient! Not to mention he took time to be an ‘on-the-fly’ mentor.”Tristan, React student
“I had a really hard time with the last lesson. Lesson 2-1, was trying for me but Anna and Darga were able to talk to me, calm me down and then I was finally able to restart and think straight and complete the project correctly.”Jason, React student
“Darga is so patient and kind with me. He is one of the reasons why I did not quit, even though I was going through a hard time in my life. He is always there to listen and guide me through my coding journey. Thank you Darga for your time and for being an awesome mentor!”Yeni, React student
“Darga is an amazing mentor! I greatly appreciated his patience with my learning process on the debugging stages of the assignment and also his guidance on how to approach the remainder of assignments with the time crunch that I have.”Cristian, Intro to Programming student
