My Most Recent Challenging Learning Experience
I recently made the decision to become an Andela Fellow. I had just finished a 6 months training as a Full Stack Web Developer and felt I had the skillset needed to become one of the top 1% software developers in Africa. I was very wrong.
I applied to the Fellowship and was sent a home study curriculum which provided me with resources needed to excel at the Bootcamp and ultimately become an “Andelan”. The only problem was that it was in ES6 Javascript and my previous training and experience was PHP. And so my dilemma began. I hardly understood Javascript and now I had to learn ES6.
First of all, I had to believe in myself because I realized that my real enemy was my negative mindset. I was afraid that I won’t be able to learn ES6 as fast as I needed. And so my journey to unlearning and relearning began. I had to develop a growth mindset that believes that I can learn anything I want and at a reasonable pace. The fast paced learning Andela believes in would have to become my belief as well.
The first challenge was to build a front end template of an app called “More Recipes”. I got scared real fast because I used to believe that I was more of a backend developer. I had problems with colors and have always considered myself a minimalist. If you notice, I said “had” because the videos sent to me by the Bootcamp coordinator made me realize that a growth mindset can do anything and you had to own your own.
I started my task and had to read some front end resources and relearn Bootstrap 4 because I had a previous knowledge of Bootstrap 3. This also required me unlearning my previous knowledge of Bootstrap and it was really difficult. Bootstrap 4 is built on flexbox and Bootstrap 3 isn’t. It was really daunting because my alignment became messed up very fast. But I was able to imbibe the Andelan spirit of Passion to finally deliver an attractive UI. I have also been able to learn ES6 to a reasonable level.
This experience has given me a new mindset and I know that even if I don’t make it to the second week, I’m not the same person I was two weeks ago.
Thanks for reading.
