Git with the Program | Apartment List Internship
Six weeks at Apartment List flew by.
I first noticed the time passing in the midst of my initial learning curve and onboarding process. At this time, I was getting set up for the remote internship while the Admin Console team worked hard to get the staging environment setup finished for me to start my project. Because the REP Program and Apartment List internship were created on short notice, there was a lot of on the spot learning on my side as well as the company. Looking back at my experience, this time period was the most challenging due to the amount of information I had to learn about Apartment List and its tech stack all while feeling like I wasn’t doing enough for my project. This feeling stemmed from the project’s dependency on the new staging environment credentials, but it was resolved by working closely with the team to detail an action plan to obtain my goals for the internship.
Like many other students in the REP Program, my main goal for this summer was to grow my technical skills while expanding my professional network. I am proud to state that I have been able to accomplish these goals in addition to my project-specific goals. After six weeks at Apartment List, the component that I worked on during my internship will live on the company internal application, Admin Console. In its current state, it has preliminary functionality that will serve as a guideline to implement other similar features and later be iterated on. At the conclusion of my internship, I was also able to provide my team with a proposal for features that would provide more functionality for admin users by addressing areas that were discussed during my meetings with teams across the company. One task that I was not able to get to was learning how to write tests for my component. Now, knowing the skills to create a web application and mentors to reach out to, I plan to continue learning about web development and web application testing through personal projects.
The technical skill set I learned through this internship includes Typescript, React, Sass, and Git. With the encouragement of my mentor, Lynn, I created a Git tutorial that guides new coders through the concept of Git and how to integrate it into a workflow during code development. At the conclusion of the video, I hope that viewers feel comfortable with the concept and have the skills to use Git in their personal projects. Prior to this internship, I only knew about Git through the extent of knowing Github. Therefore, I do not consider myself an expert on the topic. I wanted to share how I used Git during my internship to show beginning coders that learning the basics of Git before or during an internship with a company is not hard. I believe that Git is a skill that all software developers should be equipped with. If you have ever copied and pasted your working code into a separate document during a project as a checkpoint, I highly recommend integrating Git into your workflow! Git will allow you to see your code history and get feedback from others at ease.
Through the REP Program, I have been able to network with many individuals within Apartment List, allowing me to grow personally and professionally. My six weeks with the company felt like home through commonalities within Case Western Reserve University, my home state, and life experiences. Thank you to everyone at Apartment List for a great experience! I am grateful for this summer opportunity that was created by the CWRU Veale Institute for Entrepreneurship.
I would like to end this blog with a shout out to my internship teammates: Andrew Bezzub, Lynn Park, Gavin Li, Kevin Wong, and Kevin Salipante. Thank you for checking up on me daily and for giving me work and life advice! I am looking forward to seeing new features you create on Apartment List’s website and to our team reunion. Until then, Kevin S. and I will be in Cleveland!
