[Launch School] Community Update - August 28th, 2024

Hi, everyone! I've been thinking about what to share with you this week. Since I'm about to head back West, it'd be an excellent opportunity to pay some respect to the incredibly diverse food of Asia. I present to you my five favorite dishes from my time in Asia: - Thali set meal + a plain lassi from Malaysia - we naturally tend to align more or less with a culture's flavor palette. Indian food, and I agree on everything. No other cuisine stood a chance for the number one spot. Thanks to the large Indian population in Malaysia, I ate almost exclusively Indian food here. - Fish Amok from Cambodia - Imagine quiche meets curry with notes of lemongrass and coconut milk. A unique, delicious, and exceptional meal like nothing I've ever had. Cambodia is well known for its excellent pepper and other spices. - Curry from Japan - Whoa! I've always loved Thai curry, but I had no idea Japanese curry could be so good. Thick, spicy, served with fresh, crispy sides of your choosing. It's not too salty, which is how I felt about most of the Ramen I had in Japan. - Shrimp dumplings from Taiwan - You've never seen so many dumplings made fresh on the spot. Go for a stroll to get a bubble tea afterward. Taiwan had a lot of great food and would appear multiple times on a longer list. - Mango sticky rice from Thailand - I'm a super savory person, but I can't help but put mango sticky rice on the list. I didn't know what sticky rice truly was until I had it in Thailand. I'm still trying to identify the crunchy, salty topping they put on it. Still, the combination of fresh, ripe mango, creamy coconut sauce, and slightly salty sticky rice is exquisite. [Food] I've provided some honorable mentions in photo form and random food pictures because it's impossible to sort through the number of photos I've taken of my food in the past year. 😅 --------------------------------------------------------------- Launch School News 🚀 Smooth Start Smooth start applications open next week on September 2nd, 2024! If you're new to the LS community or just Launch School-curious, Smooth Start is a great way to get a taste of the community and find your footing. Smooth Start is free and available to Prep and Core students. Visit the [Smooth Start page]( for more information. The first week of Core Live is also happening now. I'll take a moment to explain these two programs for anyone feeling overwhelmed by the number of resources here: [Smooth Start]( is a four-week program to help you integrate into the Launch School community. Smooth Start is all about building connections and finding your footing in this fully remote, self-paced world. Think study habits, Q&A's, and support from an experienced student lead who's been in your shoes. [Core Live]( is a four-week program, but the focus is purely technical. We're covering the core concepts from the 101 courses of each track. We won't discuss everything covered in the first course, but we'll hit all the core concepts you're expected to master when you're ready for the 109 assessment. Think discussions of conceptual programming topics, live problem solving, and debugging. 💻 Workshops Another round of workshops has been scheduled! As usual, we'll send out email reminders, but you can always go to [the workshops page]( for a bird's-eye view. For those new to Launch School, workshops are free, hour-long sessions covering a wide range of topics, like study tips, coding style, and the internet, to name a few. Registration is open! 👩🏻‍💻 Women's Group The next women's group meeting is an exciting one! Join them on Sunday, September 15th for a Q&A with Capstone Grads Callie Buruchara, Leeya Davis, and Mai Khuu. [Find more details here]( and join the [#ls-womens-group]( channel to stay in the loop. --------------------------------------------------------------- Community News 👀 Meetups This community update is really about the students because it's been a busy month for meetups! It's great to see long-distance study buddies unite for live face-time. Let's see what our crew has been up to: Austin certainly had the largest turnout this month. I wonder... What percentage of LSers are Texans? 🤔 Join them in #regional-austin. [Austin Meetup] #regional-michigan pulled together a 1-on-1. Hey, one is a study session, and two is a meetup. It counts! [Kalamazoo Meetup] We can always count on #regional-portland to get together every once in a while! [Portland Meetup] The Bay Area had a good turnout. Make sure to join them in #california-north: [Bay Area Meetup] Remember what I said, two counts! Trisha and Cruz met somewhere in Northern California. [California North Meetup] Finally, somewhere south of north, #california-south got together on what looks like a beautiful, sunny day. [California South Meetup] Make sure to get your meetups in, folks! I hate to say it, but winter is coming, and we know the meetups slow down a lot in the colder months. 📝 Student Articles Marilyn has more wisdom from her experiences on the first two Ruby-track assessments. Though she's on the Ruby track, this article has tons of helpful advice for any Launch School student preparing for an assessment. Get the low-down on formatting, note-taking, study tracking, and assessment timing. Read [Tools to Prep for RB109 Exams: Obsidian, Anki, and More here](MarilynRoxie/tools-to-pass-the-rb109-exams-obsidian-anki-and-more-f6533b141e51). Joshua shared another article, hoping to find his rhythm to get through the curriculum a little faster. As we all know, the curriculum takes a different amount of time for everyone. Still, it doesn't hurt to map out the most efficient path forward to maximize your study time. Read [Optimizing my Study Approach at Launch School here](michael.joshua.hall/optimizing-my-study-approach-at-launch-school-7a83f2bb3e2d). 🧠The Down Low It's time for my favorite segment of the community update, the down low! Let's see what our community has had on the brain recently. Tea? Scones? Moons? Look, the tea thing has been a whole saga. I haven't kept up. When searching for down-low-worthy posts, though, I can't ignore a thread with 63 comments. Suppose you want to debate the local dialect of your region and its superiority or accuracy. In that case, you can find eager opponents [here](. Memory Lane JD brought up a cartoon from the 90s, "Wild West Cow-boys of Moo Mesa." [Take a trip down memory lane]( to a time when we went to a physical building to pick up our weekly media. Battle of the Browsers Khaled asked, and the community answered. Are you in the market for a new browser? [Find the coolest tools used by LS students](. I'm a basic Chrome gal, though I might be convinced otherwise. Obsidian, Notion, Typhora, Oh my! Okay, this is a bit of a plug. I asked for input on note-taking apps. I know, I know. We've discussed this before in #random-banter, but I have some specific needs! What's your 'available-offline' Notion alternative? [Tell me here!]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Well, that's all I have for you this time. May your studies be engaging and your code bug-free! Ciao! --------------------------------------------------------------- If you wish to stop receiving emails from us, you can use the one-click link below to unsubscribe. [Unsubscribe From All Email]( [Unsubscribe From Weekly Summaries](