MARSHMALLOWS AND SPAGHETTI
- wbuntinx9
- Jul 20, 2015
- 2 min read
Day 1!
The day started much like many of my other days in the past week or so. I woke up, got dressed, ate a quick snack and brushed my teeth. The only difference was that I did this starting at 3:40 am. Needless to say I was pretty tired despite going to bed at around 10 the night before, but some coffee made my energy level a non-issue.
On this very momentous first day of code school, we actually did not do any coding. Or at least not in the literal sense. We began with introductions through a name game and progressed to a challenge that involved marshmallows and spaghetti. What do marshmallows and spaghetti have to do with being a developer? Depending on how you look at it, nothing or everything.
We were asked to create the tallest structure we could out of marshmallows, spaghetti, string and tape. I only had miniature marshmallows and spaghetti, and I actually forgot we were allowed to use string or tape so that probably would have been helpful. I ended up building a very sad 35 cm structure to replace another one I had built that completely fell apart. But, it was fun and my desk looked like a marshmallow massacre afterward. I felt that our Ronin team did not communicate and for that reason we weren't able to tackle the challenge to our best abilities, but this is an important lesson in and of itself. Furthermore, it was interesting seeing what kind of approaches other people took to solve the problem. Like the marshmallow challenge we had today, we will constantly be faced with new problems that we won't immediately have the answer to. We will learn immensely from each other and in the meantime develop our own styles out of personal preferences and environmental factors.
Aside from the icebreaking activities, we also had some discussions on feeling "stuck" and what to do when we inevitably feel that way. It was reassuring to hear on several occasions that everyone will at some point or another feel helpless, stupid or slow. I am learning more and more how to manage those feelings and normalize them. I have to keep reminding myself that when it happens, it is a sign of progress, whether or not it seems that way at the moment. The benefits of being challenged regularly far outweigh an easy path. Like a plant that is subjected to external forces against it, we too will become stronger, more resistant to defeat and every new day we survive, we're given another chance to reach higher.
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