Hi Kevin, That's commendable; weekly meetings are a lot of work! As far as getting informal guidance, what been working for us at the University of Connecticut is having chat groups. Our bioinformatics core has a Slack channel that's monitored by the core admins and the Cyber Security club has Telegram chat groups where they also have undergrads interested in learning the shell and other things. The nice thing about chat media is newcomers who need help with something can get a quick response and it's not as formal as something like e-mail; if they are working on something and need help they're not going to wait for an in-person meeting to happen some day of the week to come get their questions answered. Either way, sustaining these types of things still needs interested and responsive people.
Aside from that, most people want structure. It's hard to get people to come sit around at a place in the hope of getting help from strangers; it's easier for them to see a well thought out presentation or attend a hands-on workshop. Pariksheet On Thu, Oct 18, 2018 at 11:50 PM kevin.stachelek via discuss < [email protected]> wrote: > Hello! > > I'm part of a small student group at my university attempting to grow > coding and data science capacity among students in the life sciences. I am > interested in getting guidance on how to organize and sustain this kind of > organization. I have experience and interests in bioinformatics, shell, R, > and python. > > I have limited experience with the carpentries directly, but was guided > here via a mentoring request. We hold somewhat weekly meetings at which a > relatively experienced member presents on a given topic. We are alternating > each semester focusing on python and then on R with some shell skills > thrown in. > > I'm looking for suggestions to make our group more welcoming to newcomers > and interesting for typical life sciences coding needs. > > Thanks! > *The Carpentries > <https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcarpentries.topicbox.com%2Flatest&data=02%7C01%7Cpariksheet.nanda%40uconn.edu%7C0b69f8b6f6d84a298cd608d63575ff4a%7C17f1a87e2a254eaab9df9d439034b080%7C0%7C0%7C636755178257482118&sdata=kctud0SSbZplnIhxZ5LWuxYfHba5OWlOAnzz0gpT8gA%3D&reserved=0>* > / discuss / see discussions > <https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcarpentries.topicbox.com%2Fgroups%2Fdiscuss&data=02%7C01%7Cpariksheet.nanda%40uconn.edu%7C0b69f8b6f6d84a298cd608d63575ff4a%7C17f1a87e2a254eaab9df9d439034b080%7C0%7C0%7C636755178257482118&sdata=d9EKR34sUhLQHZQnocyuEhj6hQqUQJ8Xr4WdSPRB%2BmM%3D&reserved=0> > + participants > <https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcarpentries.topicbox.com%2Fgroups%2Fdiscuss%2Fmembers&data=02%7C01%7Cpariksheet.nanda%40uconn.edu%7C0b69f8b6f6d84a298cd608d63575ff4a%7C17f1a87e2a254eaab9df9d439034b080%7C0%7C0%7C636755178257492123&sdata=oT35o%2FCRSbqwdlUrO84gZSTnyw%2F1kom3x0DuqIEN1m8%3D&reserved=0> > + delivery options > <https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcarpentries.topicbox.com%2Fgroups%2Fdiscuss%2Fsubscription&data=02%7C01%7Cpariksheet.nanda%40uconn.edu%7C0b69f8b6f6d84a298cd608d63575ff4a%7C17f1a87e2a254eaab9df9d439034b080%7C0%7C0%7C636755178257492123&sdata=GqwvXh3kjJhNXtsk5%2BphAzQ86MHrjleT%2FYrUgh1RppE%3D&reserved=0> > Permalink > <https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcarpentries.topicbox.com%2Fgroups%2Fdiscuss%2FT13172c02cf73a5be-M82e4f5e3c41aaeac2f548e99&data=02%7C01%7Cpariksheet.nanda%40uconn.edu%7C0b69f8b6f6d84a298cd608d63575ff4a%7C17f1a87e2a254eaab9df9d439034b080%7C0%7C0%7C636755178257502132&sdata=KmF9AM6%2BtLzoJjYEQkjMnvlsgcLtiMlAgUPNfcXG1oE%3D&reserved=0> > ------------------------------------------ The Carpentries: discuss Permalink: https://carpentries.topicbox.com/groups/discuss/T13172c02cf73a5be-Mc440d3121de4fb61e3683cba Delivery options: https://carpentries.topicbox.com/groups/discuss/subscription
