John’s Week 10 Final Essay
This quarter has been my most challenging quarter at Evergreen. I got a real idea of what it would be like to work at a software development startup as well as studying software architecture and data structures on my own time outside of the internship as we had to not only fulfill the requirements of our field supervisor but also our Evergreen faculty advisor.
Throughout the internship I was able to learn the basics of the Ruby on Rails framework and apply this knowledge in building the Invisible College Website as well hosting the backend of the Global XPRIZE graphical learning application. Not only did I advance my Ruby and Ruby on Rails experience I also picked up basic JavaScript syntax, general web development skills and proper use of AJAX, that I will be using for my own project next quarter.
The skills that I learned while at the Global XPRIZE internship were not all technical but often basic skills needed to enter the workforce as a software developer. I learned to work more efficiently as a task oriented software developer by participating in daily scrum meetings and setting realistic daily goals. This was a valuable lesson in time management and internal communication.
When not fulfilling scrum tasks for the Global XPRIZE/Invisible College, I studied Data Structures by following weekly chapters out of Concise Notes on Data Structures and Algorithms the Ruby Edition and completing the exercises at the end of each chapter. This required much independent studying and many trips to the Quasr (math/computing center) and ended up being a very rewarding experience.
As well as studying Data Structures I also explored the topic of Software Architecture and how it was being applied to my work at the Global XPRIZE internship. This included weekly readings of books and articles on the topic of software architecture and a weekly blog post summarizing my weekly learning. The reading included but was not limited to chapters out of Web 2.o software architecture and Software Architecture for Developers.
Overall, this internship was the perfect bridge between college, graduate school and preparing to enter the workforce. I got valuable experience working under a manager and using the agile scrum/burndown technique common at many software companies as well as independent trouble shooting and debugging skills necessary for successful software development. The skills I have learned throughout the Global XPRIZE internship have provided me with strong foundational web/software development skills and have empowered me to develope my own personal projects in the future.
I also have a better understanding of advanced Computer science topics such as Data Structures and Software Architecture and how to apply these topics in real-world software development situations.
