Growth, a step in the right direction
Never stop learning, because life never stops teaching- anonymous
Hello learners, it’s my task today to share my thoughts on the concept of growth mindset. Though I could easily define what it means and list the many ways it can be seen in our day to day activities, I feel it just won’t be fun enough. So instead I’ll share my story; a story of how I once displayed growth mindset recently:
The journey
It has been an exciting journey all the way to the doorsteps of Andela Epic Towers. Can’t say it has all been roses and sunshine but I sure can say it has been rewarding. Andela challenged me in a way I never thought any recruitment process would. From the Home Study to the assessments, it has been a mind shifting experience all the way.
The Curriculum and my ego
The common theme among developers is the ‘know it all syndrome’ and the same held true for me. But the first time I came across the Andela home study curriculum I felt the cold chill of despair. Not only was the language of focus (JavaScript) not my stronghold, I also had a very short time to comprehend the resource that was available to me.
Coming from a background of Java, PHP and other core Object Oriented Languages, I felt JavaScript was just a low budget remake of a once popular flash based OOP language called ActionScript. The language felt weird, it had no types, semicolons could be omitted at the end of statements and Objects could be formed from literals in other words ‘THIN AIR’. My struggle was accepting JavaScript as an actual programming language and willing myself to grasp all its possibilities.
Submission, a step in learning
I decided to give myself to the Home study curriculum in hopes of my notion on JavaScript to be proven wrong and boy was I proven wrong. The usefulness of JavaScript seemed limitless as I came across ES6, Node and frameworks that made a lot of web work much easier. In my mind, I felt JavaScript was a bunch of code snippets for creating transition between web pages that CSS couldn’t cater for, but that seemed to no longer be the case. The language had evolved beyond the web browser into the command prompt and I could never have known this if I hadn’t stretched myself out of my safe zone.
Takeaway
From my experience with the Andela recruitment process, I’ve learnt that no language should be belittled and no knowledge should be trivialised. I could have easily let my ego get in the way of my learning and stood tall on the previous glories of my software development journey. In order to inculcate a growth mindset it is important that as developers we see learning as a never ending journey past unlikely territories. No learning process promises immediate gratification but we must be willing to keep an open mind and maintain an attitude of dissatisfaction in whatever stage of growth we are in. As a role model of mine would always say - ‘stay hungry, stay foolish’. This I believe is what growth mindset is all about; maintaining a posture to consistently learn, unlearn and relearn.
So that’s my story. I hope you have learnt.
