My First Experience In Andela Coding Boot Camp

Experiences birth full understanding. It personalizes the understanding of a particular thing. Before I came to boot camp I had heard all sorts of stories about boot camp, both from people who had experienced it and those who had not. I was, therefore, able to build a mental picture of what boot camp is and what to expect.

Today, I will be writing about my personal experiences of boot camp. It’s been a jolly ride through boot camp, like all ‘merry go rounds’, I’ve had my ups and downs, I have been both ecstatic and glum. However, I have had an awesome time so far. Below are comparisons of my expectations and experiences so far.

I expected to learn lots of new things. I experienced learning new things. Within 4 days, I have learned so much. I have learned to use git and git workflow, I have learned to use pivotal-tracker. I also got introduced to test-driven development, just to mention but a very few. More so I learned skills such as giving feedback, growth mindset, interpersonal skills and so much more. It has been a learning sprint for me here.

I expected to learn to maximize time. You are left with little or no choice on this at boot camp, you either maximize your time or you are left behind. I had to teach myself to plan each day, more so we had daily stand-ups, where we got to post our achievements for the last 24 hours and plans for the next 24 hours. This helped me learn to break down tasks and prioritize by importance. As a result, I learned to maximize time.

I expected to meet a community of developers. Well, I have been meeting amazing developers, The Andela fellows, the boot camp and learning facilitators, the boot campers are all lovers of technology who are aspiring to make life better with technology. These people are just a sea of knowledge. There is no stopping you when you are around such people.

It must already seem like I have been having the best time of my life, well, yes it has been an exciting experience, however, I have had glum times as I mentioned earlier, from times when I couldn’t figure out my code to times when my computer system misbehaved completely, or when I felt I had too much to do and was overwhelmed. Still, will and discipline kept me going.

I have had a memorable time at Andela boot camp so far, it has shaped my learning process a lot and it will play an important role in my future endeavors.