Looking to Your Left and Looking to Your Right

Written by Rohit Ahuja, iXperience '14 (Coding), Harvard University

I think it was one of my high school teachers that told me that I’m in the right room if I can look to my left and look to my right and see positive, motivated, and brilliant people. This piece of advice has been applicable about 96% of the time I’ve been here at iXperience. I usually spend the other 4% in the Co-Ed bathroom at the iX House. One time I looked to my left and made eye contact with a girl. That was weird.

For real though, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time here in Cape Town. You don’t find many environments where the people are constantly inspiring each other. Initially, I walked in alone (alongside two of my best friends from home) with an interest to learn more about programming. But after two months of seeing the pure joy in coding and appreciating the fruits of my labor, I walked out with a passion to apply and build.

After one month of learning in the classroom, I applied my coding knowledge to a few projects as an intern at Platform45. Up until that point, I had only made programs for homework assignments in my CS classes—homework assignments that I would never look at again. But once I got to Platform45, the industry of computer science revealed its true colors. My programming buddy, Petter (yes, that’s Peter with another ’t’) and I were coding software that actual people were going to use. Wow. The thought that there were users for what I created motivated me to write not just code, but elegant, scalable code.

Meanwhile throughout these two months, the iXperience staff treated us with an incredible South African experience. We visited some fascinating museums and historical sites, hiked mountains, explored local townships, and even went shark cage diving. I would have also gone surfing, but I don’t know how to swim. Instead, I was diving so deep in the code that they sent programmers to keep me from drowning.

I arrived at iXperience after two semesters of seeing some of the brightest programmers and wondering how I was ever going to reach their level of expertise. But this entire experience led me to the realization that, as cliche as it sounds, I can do whatever I want with enough practice. Nothing is impossible.

My journey throughout iXperience was like a hike up Table Mountain, and the realization that I can create something of value was my reaching the top of the mountain. And when I got to the top, I looked up and wondered “Is the sky really the limit right now?”. (Actually, when I reached the top of Table Mountain I was gasping for air, disappointed at how unfit and unprepared I was for that unnecessarily long hike)

iXperience was truly life changing. By the end of the program, I looked to my left and looked to my right, and I knew, I was in the right room.

…and no, it wasn’t the bathroom.