One year ago, while I was having lunch at the University of St. Thomas campus in downtown, I ran into a friend who worked with the Minnesota High Tech Association (MHTA). He told me about an MHTA program initiative called SciTechsperience which matched STEM interns with internships at small to medium sized companies. I was eager to start an internship, but I knew I didn’t want to work at a large company, so this opportunity sounded perfect for me.

Just a few months later I started an internship program at Mobile Composer, working as a Web Developer Intern. I was eager to learn everything I could and grow my skills, and was excited to work for Mobile Composer because of their product, and the small, tightly knit team. One of my goals was to work for a company where I would be exposed to many different areas of development, and which would help me build a broad skill base. Working for a start-up allows you to do just that. Before I started working with Mobile Composer I had experience in Java, C, and JavaScript. I was met with a steep learning curve when I encountered all the different technologies used in our stack and how they interacted. To bring us up to speed we went through a course on Plural Sight, which was a big help. I learn best by working through the problems and going over the material, so the site tutorials were really beneficial. We had an intern group of four, and it was great that we all came from different programming backgrounds. I quickly learned how to work with the team to problem solve. Weekly deliverables gave us guidelines on what we should be doing at a given time, and how best to meet our goals for the end of the week. Throughout the course of the summer, as we became more comfortable with the technologies we were using and improved our efficiency, our deliverables grew more and more ambitious.

My advice to interns is to try to soak in everything you can, and try your hand at something different. As a developer, you are always learning. Never waste an opportunity to gain new knowledge that can help you broaden your skill base.

I recently accepted an offer from Mobile Composer to begin working full-time after I graduate from the University of St. Thomas this Spring. It’s a great way to finish my senior year, and I am excited to be a permanent part of this team, face new challenges, and grow my skillset as an important contributor to our company.