The internship experience was a great one. I learned a lot about myself and what I’ll be looking for in future employers. In the beginning of the internship, I doubted myself and didn’t think I had the skills to complete the tasks necessary. But, as the internship progressed, I became really excited. It helped me realized that web design and development was something I really wanted to do and I became super motivated to make sure my work was the best. I remember talking to my partner and telling him, “I wish I was getting paid for this!”. In telling him that, I wanted to talk to my supervisor about working there. He agreed and said hopefully at the end of the internship, they would try and hire me. As the internship progressed and continued to work on the same project, I did get a little bored. Doing the same project every time I was in the office, I started loosing a bit of motivation and my progress was slower than it was in the beginning. I told myself I needed to stick it out and this is how it would be if I was working full-time. I started to progress a bit more since I knew I could begin the development process once the design was completed. I was simply waiting for the approval of the UX/UI designer and supervisor. Once it was finally approved, I was motivated again to show them the developer skills I had. But the design was a lot more complex then I realized. There were a lot of elements I had no idea how to code. Majority of the time it was a lot of self teaching as Leo didn’t have the time to sit down and help me. But he was very helpful and gave me all the tools necessary in order to solve any issues I had. There was also a lot of new material and things I didn’t learn when I was in school, so all of these things really discouraged me and in the end, I didn’t get to develop as much as I wanted.
As a whole, I feel like I could have done a lot better. I let my lack of confidence jeopardize my performance. At times I gave up and didn’t do the research necessary to complete certain tasks. Looking back, I know I shouldn’t have been so hard on myself because it was an internship and I was still learning. But also, I should have had more discipline and done the research and taught myself what I needed to know.
In the end, they couldn’t hire me because they didn’t have the budget. I was really heartbroken and even cried, but it was a lesson learned. Don’t give up half way and give 110% the entire time. It’s my life and I need to dedicate myself to my education because technology and coding languages are always changing and I need to keep up to be able to stay in the field.
