Overview

CSESoc Projects is splitting off into its own society and I think Education should be a crucial part of that. I propose incorporating Education throughout Projects. A rough structure can see Education split off into 3 teams within Projects:

• Team dedicated to running the training program

• Team dedicated to organising workshops (internal and external)

• Team dedicated to developing the learning platform

I will talk about structure later but first let me dive into some high level reasonings.

The Line

I would draw the line between the 2 societies at social vs technical. With this in mind, I do not think we should separate Education (which is a technically focused team) from Projects' huge technically focused dev community.

Separation Hurts Collaboration

Case Study #1

Recently Edu ran a workshop and needed some React mentors. I made a post in Projects asking for volunteers. No one volunteered

We have run dozens of nightly help sessions within Projects and had no problems getting volunteers. Yet Education asks for the exact same thing and no one went.

Case Study #2

Careers wanted some helpers at their personal projects workshop to showcase their project + answer some questions. No one volunteered

We sourced several volunteers for the Projects Spotlight collab with Media (popping off in view count btw!). Yet Careers asks for a less intensive version of the same thing and no one went.

High Level Advantages of Combining

Motivation

In summary, motivation is hard when you are alone. I would recommend having a conversation with the Education Directors on this.

It’s much easier when you are surrounded by a vibrant dev community. I would recommend talking to Vicky and I about this! (Seriously, we have so many examples)

Education initiatives are worked on by individuals in an isolated environment. Now imagine initiatives such as the MERN workshop being developed within Projects with constant feedback and engagement from our community of active devs.

Volunteers

Due to the vast domain of CS, Education relies heavily on volunteers with different expertise. However, they are currently separated from their volunteers (who mostly reside in Projects!).

It’s hard to see people signing up for Education and teaching for free for a whole year. It’s very easy to see people occasionally joining a help session, or giving a workshop, etc.

Also keep in mind that many Projects members will “retire” in the future (non-stop dev work is hard!) but will hang around in our community. This is the pool of people Education will gain access to by being part of Projects.

Midway Thoughts

Let’s take a quick breather. As you continue reading, I want you to consider the following:

Structure

Here are some rough ideas which I’m glad to discuss. I can see 3 different teams which Education can fill.

Training Program

We want a team dedicated to running and organising the Training Program. With a dedicated team, we could have:

• Weekly curriculum + notes and exercises for the trainees

• Centralised workshops to take the burden off training-leads from rehashing the same content to their teams individually

• Improvements! There’s a lot to be improved and I’m really sad I can’t do more and faster

Workshops (Internal and External)

What’s most important is we need people to drive the initiative. Knowledge sitting in brains won’t spew itself out unless someone helps organise for it!

• Finding volunteers + scheduling and planning workshops

• Writing content (with feedback from Projects community!)

• Organising follow-up dev sessions to consolidate knowledge

• Other stuff, I’m sure there’s more to a good workshop than hand someone a mic for 2 hours to talk about Figma

Learning Platform

Education has a cool initiative with the learning platform. It could benefit from being having a proper Project team behind it.

Final Thoughts

There are a lot of things that could be ironed out but one thing I know for certain is that we should never fragment our dev community. Something didn’t feel right to me when a lot of split-off discussion (maybe it was internally in the Projects Discord) revolved around Projects “clashing” with Education.

Anyways, if you want to discuss more, leave comments or join the Education Discord.