Andela Grills

There is a meme from Bear Grylls that goes like, “Adapt, Improvise, Overcome”. In the tv show, Edward Michael “Bear”, puts himself in the most inhabitable situations in the wild and has to adapt to his new habitat to survive. I do not know why he does this but its entertaining.

Andela’s Bootcamp is like being in the wild. Right here they baptize you with fire, literally. They heat up things and put you in situations that test your resilience, how much heat you can handle before you break. I want to believe the pressure they take us through is nothing compared to what they go through.

Adaptability is being able to learn and improve the change in your environment.

So yeah I made it to week two, and it was not easy to get here. When I started week one I went through the challenge one expectations and thought to myself that this thing is easy. Its just a UI with HTML and CSS, how hard can it be. Believe you me when I started the challenge I immediately knew I under estimated it. There was a lot expectation apart from just designing a UI. Every day in the morning they sent us challenges and targets. We had to meet our targets before 4 pm and had to account for everything I did that day. Yes I did my UI challenge but first I had to observe so many protocols before finishing my tasks. I have written code for awhile but not like this. Here at Andela you first have to write user stories, create branches for each feature, write tests first before programming logic, commit to git with correct messages, the list is endless. On the other hand, I was used to writing code, make sure it works and that’s it I’m done.
All these were new to me but I had to adapt, improvise and overcome the situation. Crying about it or giving excuse would not help my situation. I had to work with what I got. How did I adapt to that situation? I learned new stuff as I progressed. Have ever watched a tutorial as you did your own task? I had gotten to that point. In the long run, I delivered.

Am enjoying week two better than week one. Why? Week one was home study but I did not do it at home. I did it at work. This heated up things even more. I’m not an acrobat but I had to balance the two. When you serve two masters one has to suffer more than the other. In this case, my commitment to the how I did home study was questioned by my LFA. It was a big issue because it determined whether or not I would proceed to week two. Fortunately, I got an invite to advance. It is day two of week two and I feel proud of myself for having completed 80% of this week’s challenge, I need to prove to these guys that I’m committed.

To adapt to a situation you first need to understand yourself, weaknesses and strengths, then you need to understand the situation that you are in, and finally accept the reality of your situation.