The End of My Internship

In May of this year, I got my first web development Internship. It has been a twelve week program, rebuilding site in the company's framework. During this time, I took time off from work so I could continue to my self-education in my spare time. This gave me much more flexibility to practice and learn. I was able to be especially productive with my time in the internship. I have practiced soft skills such as writing or fixing documentation, sharing ideas, and public speaking.

New Framework

A lot of my recent training has been focused on SilverStripe, a PHP CMS and framework. On the surface, SilverStripe seems similar to something like WordPress. SilverStripe, however, is not just a CMS but also an MVC framework, something like Laravel. It is not as simple as editing a theme and installing a few plugins. SilverStripe is largely based around having classes represent page types and having those classes provide fields for the CMS. Templates will then "listen" to the data entered in said fields.

Learning SilverStripe has taught me how to create dynamic websites with an easy to use CMS, and I am interested in using it for my own projects.

Software for working in teams

Alongside learning a framework/CMS, I have also been able to pick up on a few soft skills. During my internship, I have had several developers available to learn from and to review my code. Whenever I have questions, I can reach out to someone on Slack or leave a comment on a pull request. I have been told it is a good idea to be as descriptive as possible, so that other developers can understand my thought process. Doing so makes it easier to solve problems and helps to improve my communication. I also get to participate in both staff and developer meetings. Here, I get to share my ideas and recent progress, as well as watch how others communicate. The internship has helped me become more confidant when speaking in front of other people.

How I landed this in the first place

In addition to the practice I got at the internship, I have also developed my communication skills outside of the office. I recently gave a talk at the Coderie Meetup group about my experiences. The idea was given to me by a member of the company. Public speaking also helps improve my ability to talk to clients. I have had a few face to face meetings with small business owners who are looking for their own website. In these meetings, I have been able to showcase what I have been working on, as well as receive feedback to move forward with. Not everyone has met with me in person, though I have finished websites for both clients that I met online exclusively and for those I met in person.

During my internship, my skills as a developer have improved greatly. I am able to use SilverStripe to create dynamic websites. I practiced my communication with other developers, staff, and clients. Lastly, I took what I learned, and I applied it to my own work. With no college education, I feel privileged to have had this opportunity, and I have benefited from it greatly.