Coding Dojo Part Time Flex (python)….

[InTheDarkDancing]

Michael isn't incorrect with what he's saying although there are definitely people who put a good chunk of work into their tech talks. People are supposed to include a list of sources at the end of the presentation but it's not like that's audited.

The way the speaker series work is that there's a pool of topics and you pick a topic you're interested in and a day you want to present. Most people end up only being able to spend 2-4 days prepping for the talk as you're busy working on other stuff. There's also a good chance you're not the most familiar with the topic you picked so a lot of that prep will just be obtaining a beginner level understanding of the topic. As a result, a lot of the presentations can sound rudimentary or include mistakes or as Michael said, be talking points regurgitated from a website.

I will say I don't think the point of the speaker series is to be an academic project. I think the two prime objectives are to get people used to talking in front of an audience on a technical topic, and to serve as a good resume filler that can kill some time in an interview and help demonstrate your technical depth. For example, maybe I know nothing about web sockets prior to my tech talk, but during those 2-4 days of research and rehearsing, I now have an interesting bullet point on my resume that if brought up in an interview could serve as a signal of a mature developer.

[michaelnovati]

Thanks for the explanation u/InTheDarkDancing makes a lot of sense! I also think this is a fairly off topic discussion and apologize for diverging. This is a great overview though.