I crunched the numbers. I did the math.
I am only marginally smarter than I was yesterday.
And I'm totally ok with that.
Because today I was able to help my classmates with a few of their own problems with the chat app. Again, breaking out the abacus and doing the math, I was a rubber duck for about 60% of those problems. Being a rubber duck just means being a passive listener while the other person talks him or herself through the problem on the way to finding a solution. I've been told that I'm a good listener. But I understand that being a rubber duck doesn't really pay well so its not a career path I'll be pursuing.
Now as I said, today was not the day where everything clicked and I suddenly became Brainiac. I'm just as shaky with React and Socket as I was yesterday and the day before that. But the difference was that I actively contributed. When I was helped by my instructors, I was able to pass that knowledge on to help others. When my classmates and I could help each other work through problems, that's what we did. We didn't keep all the secrets to ourselves like some kind of secrets-hoarder. We shared. We communicated. We cheered for each other and shared sympathy over each one of those 500 Internal Server Error messages that just kept popping up at the worst times.
Actively contributing in class is something everyone in a bootcamp should do. And I think its easy to do that in the first couple of weeks while covering easier topics like HTML and even CSS. But once the topics become more difficult, people start to clam up and don't want to show what they know or don't know. Its perfectly natural and I have been totally guilty of it. I think I was much more talkative in my first couple of weeks. But once things got more difficult I started to get more and more in my own head; stressing out over homework assignments and worrying that maybe I should have taken those night classes at CSN and become a plumber instead of trying my hand at front-end development.
If that sounds like you, stop doing that! Fight the urge to be quiet. Share what you know. Its easier said than done but its going to pay off. I've asked some pretty goofy questions over the 9 weeks of bootcamp and nobody has yet called me an idiot. And I've probably given some occasional bad advice too (sorry everyone!). But building this habit of sharing and communicating starts here, so take advantage of the safe space and speak up.
Today was pretty awesome. Doing the math, I am roughly 3% closer to finishing my MVP than I was at the start of the day. But today it felt good to be helpful, either by giving advice or just sitting quietly and listening. Even as the rubber duck I was able to learn some things.
So be a rubber duck. Or make someone else your rubber duck. But please make sure you ask permission before you take them into your bathtub.
