Our guest blog is written by Jonathan Evans, a University of Kent student studying Computer Science. He has been taken on as a Software Developer for his sandwich placement/year in industry at Sensible Development.
I found out about the opportunity through my University’s placement office, and I applied immediately. I received a call from Step a few weeks later, and they informed me that I had been shortlisted for the job and was invited to attend an interview. The interview was scheduled during exam season, which wasn’t ideal but I prepared myself as best as I possibly could and travelled down to Brighton.
The interview went really well, and a week later I received a call from Step informing me I had been offered the place. Fast forward a month and it’s time to move to Brighton and start my placement. On my first day I was nervous, but mainly excited to start this great learning experience. I set up my computer and spent the first half of the day installing software and setting up accounts. The boss then took me out for lunch and showed me some of Brighton, before we returned to the office and I finished with some testing.
I spent most of the first week testing web pages and searching for bugs, which was interesting and made me want to learn more. I was moved on to some coding, which was quite scary at first as it was vastly different to the code I had experienced at university. Understanding the differences between my university work and real life work will probably be the most important thing I will learn during this placement.
After a few weeks of getting to know the system and doing small bug fixes, I found myself doing more complicated work. I was being trusted more with projects and being given more and more complex tasks each day. I am now in regular contact with clients through email and phone, and handle their requests and issues.
The main languages I have been coding in during my placement include: Java, JavaScript, PHP, HTML, CSS, JSPs. I also had the opportunity to learn some Python in the 4th week of my internship, something I now enjoy using very much. Learning about Git and how to use it, has been very important in my understanding of version control, and the necessity for it.
I have learned so much in the 4 months I have been working here, and am looking forward to learning so much more in the future (and drinking as much tea as possible).
I am very grateful to the lovely people at Step for making all of this possible, and would recommend them to anyone who is looking for an internship.
Jonathan Evans