Time has never felt so fast and yet so slow for me as the past couple of days have. It’s been four-days already at Andela’s boot camp, and I must confess, each day feels like a month in terms of the volume of learning. Paradoxically, each day also feels like a second in terms of the time required to utilize knowledge learnt and meet deliverables.
The pre-boot camp hype was as high as you could imagine; adrenaline running through my veins, wild thoughts running through my head and wild code running through my fingers (or maybe not). I was as prepared as I could, hoping for the best and yet preparing for the worst. Tick tock, tick tock…gradually the day drew closer and anxiety grew higher. Finally, it was one day to boot camp; I packed my bags and travelled 300 KMs to attend boot camp.
The boot campers’ Slack group ensured that most participants were ‘virtually familiar’ before actually meeting in person. The rapport was great on Slack and this translated to warm introductions when we eventually met in person. The boot camp facilitators were warm and welcoming. In no time, the facilitators on-boarded us with the ground rules, some soft skills sessions and we were good to go.
We met with our LFAs (Learning Facilitator Assistants) on the very first day to receive feedback on the portion of work we had completed before resuming boot camp and it has been a sprint ever since. Feedback after feedback has been the order of the day for most boot campers. The already short days for implementing feedbacks are further shortened with daily article writing requirements and surveys. Twenty-four hours has never felt so short.
Notwithstanding the huge workload, the learning has been amazing. The tons of learning resources shared by boot campers on the Slack channel have made the boot camp feel like a mini-university. Besides the amazing resource sharing, implementing feedback received meant further learning. You have to learn to improve and correct/implement feedback received, and I must confess, there has been no shortage of learning. Four days already feels like four months in a university.
Perhaps my greatest joy so far in the boot camp has been proving to myself that I can learn and utilize whatever I have learnt as fast as I wish. I have learnt to use tools I have ignored for years within days. I have also met a couple of amazing people and I’m sure our friendship will persist far longer than boot camp. I have once again experienced the energy rush from doing what you love and I have also experienced the joy of fixing a nagging bug in your code. Yes, I have done all these within four days (better believe!).
As boot camp progresses and week 2 draws closer, there is no shortage of tasks in sight. The complexity of tasks also seems not to be getting easier. However, there is also no shortage of energy or passion to forge ahead!
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