Ipheghe Ovie
Aug 28, 2017 · 3 min read

My Most Recent Challenging Learning Experience

Challenge is a constant in life, everyone must pass through it. Every successful man must pass through challenges to be successful in life. Learning is part of challenge because you have to focus and pass obstacles to be able to learn anything.

I have had a lot of challenges in life right from my childhood to now. My most recent learning challenge started after I got an invite for Andela bootcamp which was last two weeks and the challenge not yet completed.

The Andela Boot-camp is the final stage before acceptance into the Andela Fellowship made to identify high-potential software developers who share and possess the values of the organization, and develop them into world-class technical bests. The 2 weeks’ program is aimed to empower applicants to learn to acquire new technological skills on their own, work independently and also collectively as a team. From the little introduction of the Andela bootcamp, it sounds challenging.

Steps and procedures were given, including the programming language to use and many more new technological stuffs that I have no idea of and I have never even heard about them prior to the bootcamp invitation were included in the bootcamp invitation email. After reading the email, I became totally confused and had a little setback. I was immobile for 10 mins, my mind kept saying it is not possible to learn all these before the start of the bootcamp and tasks were provided to be completed before the bootcamp which started today. After a while I got myself back and I remembered a statement, “everything is achievable and possible so far yous set your mind to it”. A rush of energy and excitement entered into me and I started to see an opportunity in the challenge to learn and acquire new skills.

There were some tutorial links on some of the technologies we would use, I also searched and downloaded some plus video materials. Gradually, I started learning from the materials one after the other. The most effective way for me to learn new skills is through spaced repetition i.e studying an item repeatedly over a long period of time but I had to adjust due to time constraint. Andela does not wait for anyone. The bootcamp is competitive as they are other people participating in it so the slogan “take your time to learn well” does not apply.

There were other blockers that added more difficulties to challenge. In Nigeria, PHCN does not show us love, price of internet is high and the service is very unstable. Most times I had to go to friends’ house that their generator set is on to charge and power my laptop because learning must go on no matter the challenge. I was also on medication that period. One of the drug I take makes me sleepy and tired. I just had to persist with the learning.

The Andela bootcamp challenge has been very different from prior challenges and the tasks very daunting but very productive. Before I can say I am done with this challenge is till am done with the Andela bootcamp. The learning challenge has been going well, tasks to accomplish reduced as I have learnt some new skills. My growth mindset, technological and logical skills have increased but sadly the stress has not reduced. I will make sure I don’t relent and keep pushing more till am done with the bootcamp and I come out successful.

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