I just concluded my second week in ALX, and apparently it's the last week of onboarding. You're right; things are about to get intense. Personally I believe this week was less demanding than the first but maybe that's because I finished the projects released in the first week before moving on to the next. Students who still had to worry about shell, vi, emacs or git would probably disagree. Anyways, I say it's less intense because most of the projects released this week didn't involve the use of the Linux terminal. While I claim it was less tasking, it's important to emphasize that it wasn't a walk in the park either.

Truly, the first day's project was to make sure we understood what being in the ALX community meant or any other community for that matter. There is a certain behavioural conduct required by most communities as humans need to respect the interests of one another if they expect to co-exist. This seems like common knowledge right? But most humans tend to forget so I honestly understand the need for a reminder.

The first day's project put me at ease and I thought concurrent ones would have a similar difficulty level but I could never have been more wrong. The second day's projects were released and only then did I realize; I was naive. There was one where I had to schedule an interview with an adult and ask very personal questions . Trust me, it wasn't easy. Most people aren't willing to divulge personal information even if you convince them it's only for research purposes and assure them that their identities would be kept confidential. And in this task, we're only expected to promise not to divulge the full name (a name is required in my summary) so it was even more difficult to get an interviewee. I did get someone, at least I thought I did until he bailed out. Yes I lost my only hope at that time. I'd only got less than 24 hours till the deadline and the interview was only a step to completing the project. In my worried state, I received an announcement on slack that the projects released during the onboarding weeks would have a weight of zero and amount to nothing in our overall grade. It was disheartening as I really did put in a lot of effort to complete them. I also considered abandoning the interview project; after all, I had nothing to lose. I'm grateful I abandoned that thought and successfully completed the project before the deadline. Grades or not, the skills you acquire during this process are going to remain with you; I convinced myself. I had initially decided to not just pass ALX but absolve every bit of the process so I just had to remind myself.

The third day was basically a free day but the fourth was to get us acquainted with the best way of learning and how to tackle alx projects. The Feynman learning technique was thoroughly emphasized and I learnt about the focused and diffused method of learning. I also learnt more about the significance of the Peer Learning Days organized by ALX and the importance of technical questioning and how it should be done.Honestly, the fact that ALX incorporated a project to learn how to learn only makes me more worried, especially because we had to take a quiz after. Did I mention that in ALX, every quiz question has to be answered correctly before you can move on to the next phase? It's like a way to access your true understanding of the concepts.

The project for the last day of the week was about dealing with "imposter syndrome" and it was truly interesting. Honestly, Software Engineers happen to deal with this situation often. But the fact is that besides Software Engineers, most high achievers; especially the societal disadvantaged ones tend to deal with this. I'm not sure "imposter syndrome" is the right word to use but it's this feeling of doubt, where you feel you're a fraud and do not really deserve the credit or accolades you're being awarded. Even Einstein had it so it's totally normal. Just convince yourself of how hard you worked to attain that height at which you currently stand and remind yourself that as a high achiever, you're obliged to help the less privileged. Seeing people uplifted through you would be enough proof that you deserve every credit. Don't be too hard on yourself.

In conclusion, while I believe this week was less intense compared to the first, I can't overcome this feeling that it's the calm before the storm. The probation period begins on Monday and grades start to count. Honestly, I'm worried but I am definitely looking forward to it.