Monique Reed

Monique Reed has had a love for technology as long as she can remember, despite only recently getting into coding in the summer of 2020. Her first programming experiences came through a FreeCodeCamp certification she earned and a summer tech program she attended built to support marginalized students. Despite being 15 minutes late for the start of that program, she enjoyed every second afterward as she joyfully dove into writing code. Monique knew she had found a calling in technology, and after that summer program, she got involved with after-school coding programs and eventually found Major League Hacking through Global Hack Weeks.

Her first ever hacker event, Global Hack Week: INIT in 2021, was a similarly thrilling experience to her first experiences with coding. Monique relished every second of the hackathon, appreciating the new skills she was learning, the practical experience that helped her grow her abilities, and the ability to learn and work as part of a team. Monique says she joined the hacker community through MLH. While she was initially skeptical that she could join a global community of hackers, through MLH and MLH’s partner hackathons, she discovered what it was like to be part of a larger community of fellow enthusiasts for tech.

Monique believes hackathons have changed her life. At Pearl Hacks 2022, Monique worked with a team to develop a self-care application that included interactive self-care tips, a “letter-in-a-bottle” online diary, and a recipe generator based on user grocery lists. The whole team pushed beyond their comfort zones to learn React with a Python API embedded. While Monique says the project turned out to be a “complete flop” due to a route error, she appreciated the experience of bonding with her team to identify a problem and innovate a solution together. In the months since competing in Pearl Hacks, Monique has watched countless YouTube videos on React projects and has dedicated her time to learning even more.

Monique says, “Hackathons have really given me a chance to embrace my flops.” Learning from failures is par for the course in coding, and Monique appreciates that aspect of hackathons. “I struggle with fitting in most of the time and navigating impostor syndrome,” Monique says, adding “coding is really messy, and I live for the mess because I have learned that the most beautiful things come from messes.” Through her experiences with hackathons, she has blossomed into a prolific programmer in just a couple short years.

In addition to studying computer science at the College of Southern Maryland, Monique interns with Scratchwerk and regularly participates in hackathons. She has participated in XHacks 2021, TechTogether Seattle and Miami, Hoya Hacks 2022, and won category prizes at Girls Hoo Hackand HackViolet 2022. She continues to be involved with MLH, being a member of a Global Hack Week guild, and has also studied as part of Karlie Kloss’ Kode With Klossy coding camp. Some of Monique’s favorite memories have been in the hacker community, bonding with teammates and building long-lasting relationships, and she is always encouraging as many of her friends as she can to get involved with the hacker community.