Final 2023 Project Reflevt and Share

The speaker reflects on their journey in the software engineering program at ELEX. They have grown both personally and professionally, acquiring technical skills and core values. They had initial expectations and goals, which they have mostly achieved. They faced challenges like technical hurdles and time management struggles, but overcame them with techniques like the Pomodoro Technique. They have developed new interests and strengths and have learned the importance of continuous learning. They express gratitude towards their mentors and have aspirations to apply their skills in the future by seeking mid-level or entry-level jobs and building real-world projects. Hey guys, so this is my total reflection, how my journey has been since I got enrolled to the software engineering program at ELEX. So this is how I have really really grown for that whole period that is 2023 to early 2024. For the last 12 months it has been somehow like a journey that has been so many, I have encountered so many challenges. It has been like walking in the wilderness, doing hard things. So I would say through that, through that I have really persevered. And through the persevering now, the experience that I have experienced now, I have got acquainted to technical skills that I didn't have prior to 2023. So I am so happy to the point where I am right now. Professionally, I have really moved from non-professional to a professional software engineer. Whereby the things that I knew that I couldn't do before the starting of this program, now I can do them. I can apply the knowledge that I have gained to my future or my future plans that I do have after completing ELEX. So I would say like, I would want to, I would put it in categories. First of all, I will highlight my initial expectations before joining ELEX. Because I just applied from, I just got a link from a friend of mine and then I applied. And then my expectations and goals, what I did expect from ELEX software engineering program. And also what motivated me to pursue software engineering and what I hoped to achieve. And the things that I achieved, the things that I hoped to achieve, I would say 100% of most of the things that I hoped to achieve, I pursued them or I achieved them. Which is a great goal for me. So what was my expectation? My expectation was to build a full stack application. Whereby it's both front end and back end. And which we have done. So what motivated me to pursue software engineering program? So the thing that motivated me to do this program was that to continue doing hard things. As a software engineer, you do hard things. It's not for the faint hearted people. You have to like give it all. And also through the program, you realize that you develop your personality, some of the core values from ELEX. That is the share values, which is courage, humility, and then adventurous, and then being initiative, and also the resilience. So all these now I would say like at the beginning of my ELEX software engineering program, I did not have these core values. And I was asking myself, how are we going to or how am I going to apply them or to get into them or them getting to me. But at the end of it all, after 12 months, I can say like I've already attained those core values. It's like the more you continue getting grinded with this program, the more now these core values associate themselves to you. So I would say like it has been a good journey for me. And the challenges faced during this software engineering learning program is that I encountered some technical hurdles. Because sometimes I started from zero experience with running C. We started with C, and it reached to a point whereby you don't know how to write, to run a program. But through that, to where I am right now, I would say like I would have like I would laugh, but I would say like really indeed I have learned. I've gained a lot of technical skills. In terms of time management struggles, I would say like I totally gave it all. I gave it all to this program. I had all the time to learn because now I wasn't working. I was just available full time from 6 a.m. to because they demanded 10 hours per day. And that is you have to get 70 percent in each and every project that you're getting for you to proceed to the next month or to the next sprint. So one of the challenges that I had like let's say personal obstacles that I would say was commitment. As in in terms of they give you the technique whereby the Pomodoro technique whereby you just committed for the next 25 minutes. And then you you're able to take a break, a five minute break. And then you do another 25 minutes, like two hours, and then you take a break for one hour. Then you just continue. And through now, in terms of focusing now, I had no, is it like strategy on how to focus for that 10 hour period. I had to I had applied the Pomodoro technique and it was working. It was indeed working. So that's how I tackled the challenges of focusing. And then on the academic and personal growth, I would say like this is how I reflect my academic and personal growth. I've really moved from because let me just be realistic. When I was in high school, I said like, okay, doing computer science or doing computer programming is somehow hard. But I know I don't know how I'm going to do it. But I knew like if I have to get an A for me to get enrolled to computer science. But to the point where I am right now, I would say it's good from the beginning, from the scratch to where I am right now. Because now, the more involved myself spiritually, the more now he opened my eyes in terms of even absorbing the things that I've learned for that period of one year that I couldn't even have for the last 30 years. So I would say like I've really grown a lot. The growth in me is so big in such a way that I can't even explain it. But academically and personally, personal growth in terms of courage, in terms of applying humility, in terms of being initiative. Some of the core values from LX I did not have, but right now I can say like I do have those core values. And my technical skills also have really, really improved. And also through, right now I can run programs, I can build an app from scratch, I can run a program, I can write scripts. I've learned JavaScript, I've learned C, I've learned Python, which now I did not understand any logics behind the JavaScript, behind everything. I've learned HTML, CSS, and also the framework, the flask, the man stack that is MongoDB together with ExpressJS, together with React, together with NodeJS. All those I've learned through this program and those are my technical skills. And also technical writing in terms of documentation, because now documenting how the functionality of a program, that is technical writing. So what does that program do? What are the things that you're required to do before you even do them, even you run that program? What are the things, what are the dependencies that you'd want to have before, prior to running a program? So all those skills that I've attained, I did not have those skills. And also I've developed new interests and strengths. I would say like, to me I'm not, I'm the logic guy, I'm the logic soul on the back end. But I know as time goes, I will continue getting more and more better on the front end, because in terms of the basics, in terms of the front end, that one I know. And I will really apply them to my near future in the next career. I'm open to grow. I'm open for growth, that is. So how did I tackle these challenges and what I learned from them? So how I tackled the challenges in terms of concentrating, I applied Pomodoro Technique in terms of understanding hard concepts. I had to use the Finman Learning Technique, whereby you learn and then you start explaining it like to a five year baby or five year child. So that one helped me to understand. Now, that is how I tackled. So lesson learned. Lesson learned, I learned a lot. I learned the chair values, core values of LX, that is Courage, Humility, Adventurous and Initiative, also Resilient. And I thank a lot my technical mentor. They have really helped us. I thank everyone from administration, from the day that we got enrolled, the first Karibu ceremony that we had, to where we are right now. The skills that I've gained from C, building a shell, itself building a simple shell, to where I am right now, doing DevOps, building a website. And now you have to see the impressions, see how you apply the load balancers. And then now build RESTful APIs, the web services that we build, to a point whereby now we are deploying an app to cloud. So all those skills that I've learned and through my mentors. I remember one day I had a 15-minute talk with my mentor, that is Charles Osochi. And he told me, like, yeah, build apps, build apps for you to get to know how things work. So it's all about building apps. So I'm so grateful for my mentors. They really give you everything, everything. They guide you, they provide guidance, they give encouragement. And also they do have, they give you, they have you the belief, you know, they have a belief in your abilities. And then, so what are my aspirations and my plans for my future? So how am I envisioning applying my skills and knowledge moving forward? So I'm applying for mid-level jobs, for entry-level jobs, so that at least I can upgrade my skills. Because this is software engineering, it's all about a continuous learning approach. So that is one thing that I've liked. Now there's no point whereby I'll stop learning. Each and every day I have to learn a new thing. Each and every day you have to learn a new thing, a new thing. And as time goes now, I'll be able to apply the things that I've learned to build real-world projects. So far we have built two real-world projects whereby one is a banking website, a FinTech, and another one is an API. It's a markdown converter whereby we convert from HTML language to a markdown file. And whereby now for documentation. So that's it.