Summer Intern W3b-Dev @ {NEMAC}
Many people come to internships with goals and ideas of things they want to do and learn. Not me.
by Anitra Griffin, Web Development Intern
My job over the summer was as a web tool development intern with NEMAC, working on a tool for the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. Many people come to internships with goals and ideas of things they want to do and learn, but not me. I had no idea what I would be doing or what I would be learning. Commonly this would be a disadvantage, but here it was shockingly okay. The staff cares so much about YOU and what you want to learn, more than just having you do a job.
This experience was exactly that — an experience.
Dave Michelson, my supervisor, would constantly ask if there was anything specific I wanted to learn or do. Because we could do more work that relates to whatever that is within the framework of our project. I had no answer, saying simply, “Uh…not really. Just whatever you need me to do.”
I was and am very willing to do what they need for the project. I’m happy that I came to the internship with nothing that I explicitly wanted to learn, because I learned so much I didn’t know anyway — especially since my job involved coding more than anything else.
I was tasked with some GIS (Geographic Information Systems) work while we waited for the client to decide exactly what their app would encompass. This was my first time even hearing of GIS, let alone working with it. At first I thought it was busy work, but once tool development started I realized that the GIS work I did helped me better understand the project and the type of user interface we were trying to achieve.
I also did some front-end work, which I thought was simple at first but…little did I know…making things that are highly responsive and easy for a user to experience is harder than it looks. For example — at the bare minimum, making sure some things are responsive enough for an iPhone 5s display, especially when there have been many more devices created in the five years since the phone’s launch.
Like many things that involve code (or really involve anything), there are many frustrating patches, but the reward is so gratifying when you find that error and finally get your part working. And with each pull request and branch commit, there was a
“Thanks! Your work is appreciated and you’re doing a good job!”
There was also a big emphasis on asking questions if I ever had them — even about a small thing like asking what a line of code meant. The answer would typically be enthusiastic and appreciative that it was asked, so that no one else would have the same problem later on, or to make the user experience easier.
My time here was during a transition — many staff members were moving offices or going to the NEMAC office downtown or changing up their schedules to be at both locations during the week, and it also happened to coincide with the graduation of many long-term NEMAC interns — so my experience is a bit different than a typical intern’s in this office. Nonetheless, I enjoyed my experience here greatly.
