My Most Recent Learning Challenges.

The most challenging learning experience I have gone through recently came in form of Andela’s pre-Bootcamp challenges. I have been programming for close to nine months now. By programming, I don’t mean hardcore coding and working on large projects. The most I had done before joining Andela’s Bootcamp was to code single-function programs and maybe a program with a single python class. These classes usually had a few methods in them that at most calculated individual’s ages or what they earned over a period of time. Then came Andela Challenge 1.

In the first week of the pre-Bootcamp workshop, we were given the first of four challenges to complete in a week. Since it was the first challenge, I wasn’t expecting it to be extremely difficult. I was wrong. I was required to code using HTML and CSS, two of the languages I had completely overlooked when I was preparing for the workshop. It was indeed a challenge but nonetheless, I was determined to complete it within the stated time. I spent a good amount of time learning what I needed for the challenge.

I have never been design-inclined so I had a bit of a hard time learning how to create a great, not just good, user interface. From matching colors to arranging elements in a pleasing way, all seemed to be going opposite of what I was visualizing in my brain. I could almost start to understand why I always overlooked delving into frontend development. However, I couldn’t let all that get in my way and with only two days left to submit my work, I started working on my frontend elements. I managed to complete all the work but I had already missed the deadline by a couple of hours. It wasn’t the best of starts but I was happy I had managed to complete everything with the limited knowledge I had at the time. During that week I had also learned how to follow good project management practices, using version control and working as a team.

This time, I thought for sure, I would be able to complete the challenge without a lot of fuss. Guess what, I was wrong again. As much as I understood everything in the beginner tutorials on Kenya-tech, they were nothing compared to what I was required to do in the second challenge. Within seven days, I had to learn TDD, which is another whole topic by itself, object-oriented programming, which in the past has given me a lot of headaches and to finally build on some of the things I had learned in the previous challenge. It was surely going to be a heck of a week and I was going to work towards achieving my own set goals.

A few weeks ago, I was happily coding single functions thinking that I was great at programming in Python. Now my whole world is being turned upside down and I could not believe how lacking my knowledge on web development was. In the last two weeks, I have been able to learn more than I have learned in the last eight months. Although it has been challenging and has caused me a couple of sleepless nights, I am glad that I started this journey. Looking back, I am really happy where I am now and how much I have achieved in such a short period of time. Through hard time and tough challenges is truly where you can achieve the most.

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