My HNGi 6 Internship Experience

My HING Internship 6 Experience

I knew about the HNG Internship since last year 2018, I can’t remember why I didn’t apply then though but I was really excited about it. So when my oga Mr Emeka sent me the link to register I didn’t waste time. At first I was thinking I won’t get in for one reason or the other so I didn’t care very much. But I got a confirmation message that same day! I started to care.

The internship is remote which was good, since I was neither in Lagos nor Abuja. The first few days after I joined the workspace were kind of overwhelming. There were sooo many people, about 8k. I didn’t even know where to start from, the mentors were really helpful to help us ease in. I was accepted into the Design track and joined the Machine Learning track. In my mind I wanted to do something different since I am mostly used to Frontend and Backend work.

The first task I was given on the ML (Machine Learning) track was to create a machine learning model that identifies platenumbers. At first I thought “beans”. But not so… After collecting pictures of platenumbers and non-platenumbers and adding them to the shared repository I was stuck. I didn’t know what to do next, I had used Python before but didn’t like the experience so I didn’t even know how to proceed with this task (which required Python knowledge). Not being able to proceed here, I quit the track. I needed to complete the task so I could move to the next level and if you don’t move to the next stage you will be evicted. yeesh. I jejely quit the track so that I would remain in the internship.

In the design track I felt everyone there was already an expert looking at some of their works. I don’t consider myself a ‘designer’ though I appreciate design and do all sorts of design-work so I didn’t even think I would get in. It was an exhillirating period, the tasks were many and the deadlines were short. I missed a class because of a group presentation we had to make and I was subteam lead :skull:

Team Harmony was a mad team yo, my teammates were on fire! Each and every one of them. That was the first time in my life doing anything like that, we were constructing flowdiagrams and having discussions about the user flows, we were then creating wireframes to demonstrate a user story then high-fidelity mockups. The app we worked on was an estate visitor management app. It was fun thinking and debating about different aspects of the flow, even the littlest detail like what kind of confirmation message we will use had to be decided on. Acting as team lead was overwhelming at times, I tried to fake it most times because really i-dont-know-what-i-am-doing.jpeg

But I am grateful for my team members, the BEST designers I have met :) They were so eager to get the job done, they were committed to qualty work and were respectful to each other. Like a family :`) I would like to appreciate Arinze, Oluseyi, Fidelis, John, Qobi, Olusanmmi, Cirqlar and the others! One love boys! :heart:

So after winning all the winnables smirk I thought we would chill small, but nope! We had a new task waiting for us due in 3 days. And this one was based on individual designs yikes. I decided to find another track before they open my yansh lol. The thing is, I was getting busyish with school work, I hadn’t had a normal night sleep in while and I was afraid of not meeting expectations and then being evicted because of not meeting the deadlines :clown: Not me! ( ͡ ͡° ͜ ʖ ͡ ͡°)

Jejely like the first time, I switched tracks. This time though, I would play it safe I went for the Backend (NodeJS). Our first task was to make a URL shortener. We killed it. It was my first time using ejs templates like that, and I was scared of messing up at first. Thankfully, I got to understand it and I really like how it works. Will definitely use it in another project.

After essentially completing the url shortener we were asked to remake a forum site for validating job interview invitations. IsThisARealJob is the name. We also used EJS templates. IsThisARealJob was a bigger app than the URL Shortener, we also inducted more members to our team. Mostly frontenders and they were great! I was asked to be the frontend teamlead :) So we all worked together to make IsThisARealJob succeed. Everyone on our team (frontenders, backenders, devops, design) many of us were working on different aspects of the app, the goal was to create a working app. And we reached that goal. We flopped at the first evaluation; we had deployment issues and we weren’t ready AT ALL. It was a let down I felt, because we were the same thing just a few days ago that delivered Trim (the URL shortener). Thankfully through the leadership of Korey we doubled our efforts and pushed to complete IsThisARealJob in a matter of days, what a rush! For the final evaluation, we won! We were so happy. Our team was hot, I would like to appreciate everyone! I can’t remember all our Slack handles but I appreciate Korey, Seyi, Fernami, Israel (our PM), Kubiat, Gabicle, Enny, O, Goldin, Muktar, Abdulhafiz, CodedCoder, Dennis, Gfred, Abiodun, Risikat, Yusuf, errybody! ( ͡ᵔ ͜ʖ ͡ᵔ )

I started this journey in August, not sure of what to expect. But I thank God I started and was able to complete it, I reached stage 10 with every teammember still with us! We completed two production ready apps. No other team can boast of that :), Omo THANK GOD O. I will advise anyone interested in getting better at programming to do the internship. And it’s not just about the code, I gained valuable interpersonal skills, leadership skills, communications skills. I have more confidence as a developer (and designer) because of this program. The people I have met are crazy. Different sorts of people with different backgrounds, ages, colors, ideas, beliefs. Never have I been in that kind of company. There is something you get from seeing other people like you do things that you do only better. You realise that you too can do those things. Same thing happened to me. I am grateful to all my teammates in Team Harmony, Trim, IsThisARealJob I love y’all haha. I can’t mention everyone’s names bu

Before then I had not worked on anything like these three apps. Some of my designs are in the GateApp app which is on the freaking playstore! My code is on Trim and I am still a contributor to ITARJ which is going places imo. I will recommend this program to anyone that wants to move from being a beginner to actually working on real world products with similar developers, designers, digital marketers, project managers all join.

Thank you Hotels.ng, thank you Mark Essien.

you can kill one bird with two stones, whatever you do the bird must die

(∩ ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)⊃━☆ ﾟ. * ･ ｡ﾟ,