How I demonstrated Growth Mindset Recently.

AnnetteTumukunde — Fri, 11 Oct 2019 17:11:28 +0000

One of the main reasons people succeed is having a growth mindset. When you think that something is very hard and do not give it more of your effort, it usually turns out to make you feel bad. However, if you find something to be very hard to you, but do not let it put you down, by working hard; even the result you will get from that challenge will help you grow.

Recently, as mentioned in my previous blog post "WITW honed my technical skills via challenges" that I and my colleagues were granted an opportunity to be Andela interns, where we acquired so many skills related to programming. That opportunity shaped me up in my growth mindset in the following ways:

• In the beginning, I was not aware of the tools to use in programming, but the enthusiasm led me to learn more and improved my skills. Eagerness to learn new things is having a growth mindset; contrary to a person with fixed mindset.

• During the simulated boot camp and the workshop, I met so many challenges and was afraid that I will not be able to overcome them, even though that required me to give in more efforts, which I did with a determination and was able to overcome them.

• If not with perseverance and persistence, I would have given up with the challenges. Nevertheless, I realized that the more you face challenges, the more you grow in your programming skills.

• As a key to reach to success, there should be focus in whatever you commit to do. I had to commit on doing better the next time, which helped me to continue.

• The feedback I received from my LFA (Learning Facilitator) or kind of an evaluator helped me to improve. I embraced all the feedback and tried my best to work on them, which I would not have done when I had a fixed mindset. I had to know that I did not have to let my failure to meet the expectation should not stop me to do better the next time.

As every developer, we had better know that having so many errors in our codes does not have to put us down or stop us from moving on. That way, we will be having a growth mindset. In addition, even if you meet the expectation, you still need to do better than that, because you will be learning and growing in your skills as well. Lastly, do not allow a blocker or many blockers stop you from continuing.

WITW honed my technical skills via challenges

AnnetteTumukunde — Sun, 06 Oct 2019 07:20:59 +0000

Since the day my colleagues and I were informed that Andela has agreed to give us the opportunity to work there as interns, I was greatly excited and worried at the same time. When they told us to first go through the challenges on freecodecamp, I had good moments learning codes there, although I had to rush so as to finish the course in a timely manner.

By the time of starting the workshop, I wasn't yet done with the course on freecodecamp. The good thing is that I didn't stop to learn; because during the workshop that is where I learnt most of the new skills than on freecodecamp. I got to understand what is responsive website and why we need it, I learnt about more new tools that help for doing the back-end like nodejs/expressjs, eslint, mocha; all were new to me. In fact, I was a beginner in JavaScript.

In the past few weeks, I have been working on a project that gave me hard time and took me more learning and working hours. If it wasn't of great passion and patience in programming, I wouldn't have managed to continue. I can't forget the first time, I had installed eslint, my file turned out to red lines. Imagine seeing this in your project; very awful. That is the same case on the tests. Good thing, I managed to work on them.

The skills I acquired from this workshop such as project management where I had to split the entire project into manageable piece of work and created the stories. I was also new to github and wasn't aware of how to use good git workflow; but I am able to do that now. Posting daily standup and communicating about my blockers helped more, for many blockers I had were solved and was open to tell my stuck points.

Besides of the improvement in coding, I also made new friends whom we share interests. Those friends are the ones in the cover image. Actually no one can manage to effectively work in Andela without the ability to work in team, that is the reason having soft skills also enabled me to communicate with my fellow, learnt from them, helped them, motivated one another and ensured we all were going in right and forward direction. This also helped me to keep moving despite of the challenges and blockers that I had.

I believe programming can't seem simple to someone who doesn't like it, or doesn't have eagerness to learn and improve in technical skills. It didn't take me any effort to feel the enthusiasm of knowing how to code, but I had to strive and work hard to keep moving forward and learn more new skills related to programming. In spite of the love for technology and programming; my friends, family and colleagues pushed me to reach my higher level. I don't hesitate to say that my colleagues in Women In Technical Workshop influenced me positively and helped more for me to reach my high potential and excel.

Lastly, I would recommend many more workshops to other young people who have interests in tech, specifically women for there is still a low number of women who join tech particularly in software development. I kindly would like to share my experience with other women who like programming but are still afraid to join the tech field.

DEV Community: AnnetteTumukunde

How I demonstrated Growth Mindset Recently.

WITW honed my technical skills via challenges