Over the last few weeks, I have become a lot more comfortable with the environment inside and outside my workplace. Blueport Commerce has an open space environment which creates a collaborative atmosphere. I like this because it allows me to easily ask questions to my supervisor and other people in my team. Along with this, there are pair programming desks and many conference rooms which people can use to collaborate together. My co-workers have been great and four Northeastern interns just joined last week as well. It’s nice to also have a few people my age go through the same process and learn together. In terms of outside the workplace, it has been really nice living in the city and being close to so many places. Living alone and cooking has also been a great experience.
I have felt that the world of work is different from university life in many ways; like differences in the social environment and the practical use of what we have learned in our courses. In university, we are mainly told what to do in terms of assignments and projects which differs from an internship or job where we have to use the concepts we have learned and apply them to real-world problems. This has taught me a lot because it has forced me to learn and explore programming languages and software tools that I would probably not have explored. Recently at work, I had to learn PowerShell which is a scripting language to edit a Powershell script to make it more efficient. This made me feel accomplished because I learned something new and made something that will be useful for other people in my team. Another instance is having to learn C# and Selenium which is a web browser automation tool. It’s interesting to learn all the different things you can automate and test the websites.Â
Through this summer internship, I am learning, not only programming skills but also interpersonal skills which will help me in many different areas. Last week I had to demo a PowerShell script to the rest of the team and showcase what I have been working on and how it will be useful to us. This was a nice experience to have to demo your work and also see what other people have been working on. Blueport uses the agile work environment in which we work on specific tasks for 2 weeks at a time (called a sprint) and at the end of the 2 weeks, we reflect how that sprint went and what areas we need to improve on. I feel that this is a great technique because we create goals and reflect every sprint and I think this can be used even at college. Overall, the last four weeks have taught me a lot and I am excited to see what the rest of the summer holds for me!