So finally, after sending tons of mail to different companies regarding an internship, I got a reply from one of them. My joy grew no bounds as I quickly shared more details with them. Next week an interview was arranged.

Then came the big day. I did a little prep work on some programming concepts. Mentally preparing myself to face any challenge, I nervously entered the room of two people. I was asked a few general questions like my whereabouts. “What are the websites do you use often?”, was one surprise question to which I answered some websites like StackOverflow and Quora. To test my technical skills,  I was made to write some simple SQL queries. The interview was over. I was made to wait for sometime while they discussed. With my fingers crossed, I sat out wondering if I said anything stupid. After a few minutes, I was called. One of them said, “We have good news for you”. Right now, I knew I was smiling like an idiot. And even more, when they announced I was allowed a stipend.

For those who aren’t aware of the good news: I was selected as a Software Developer Intern at DesignQube with a stipend! I felt like the happiest person on Earth(I was screaming inside, trust me).

Filled with so much excitement to start my first big day at the company, I boarded my bus(Apparently everyone decides to board my bus). It was a 40 minute travel through the traffic. I arrive at the office as the first person, meet the smiling receptionist, who would mouth me ‘Good Morning’ and provide access to enter.  Eager to learn and experience work culture, I fire my laptop, vaguely wondering what my college friends are up to. After an hour or so, I meet a team of three people, my gurus, with whom I would be working for the next 30 days. Two of them were freshers who joined last month. About them: They are truly amazing coders. A tug-of-war match (using a slipper) would go on with my opponent opposite to me(I let her win every time). Lastly, give it up for the person who handled all my annoying questions – Tech Leader. I was flipping out when I figured  I can develop an android application in 5 mins without any coding! They have basically tolerated all my cranky behavior(hopefully they forgive me) and taught me so much. I knew I was gonna miss my team when I leave. The first week was the hardest though. Having never sat in front of my laptop for a whole day, nevertheless code, it was mentally tiring. Needless to say the bus travels making it worse.

Around 2.30pm, we have our lunch with the Managing Director of the company. About him: I wonder if there is anything he does not know(except sport, he’s into chess though). Lunch talks were usually about upcoming technologies to World Politics to Nikola Tesla.

At around 5pm in the evening, I would reach my limits. So my folks would take me to a local tea shop where they would have bhajis and vadai while I eat coconut biscuits(yes, I get mocked for it). My friend over the diagonal (The Senior Intern) would get me anything I want, I would just decline modestly. Some days we would just zone out in the terrace watching the planes fly low and the trains cross by. When I get stressed out and no new ideas hit me, I would start drawing funny stuff which apparently turned out to be entertaining for my team(Nope, I don’t draw well).

TAKEAWAY FROM THIS INTERNSHIP:

I was able to develop a web application, though the web page alignments would get on my nerves. I met with frustration when I accidentally deleted my whole database (lesson well learnt. Always have backup). From that day, I started using GitHub (bless this tool). I was taught the MVC Framework(feeling like a pro already).When I was briefed about the project I was going to do, it was scary. I wondered if I would ever finish it.Whilst doing the project, I learnt to use plug-ins and bootstrap is amazing! Now I can say I know jQuery too. I felt like I learnt PHP from the professionals themselves. At the end of my internship, I was provided with confidence to attend placements in college and my 1000 lines of code were worth it! And I learnt some jokes on programming :P

Some other things I captured were:

• Stock Markets. Amazing stuff.
• Running a company is like running a country.
• You don’t need to study MS to gain knowledge (or to go aboard :P)
• String Concatenation. That’s how dumb I was.
• Normalization. God, I struggled with my database!
• Taking leaves, bunking, not so easy folks.
• To write blogs.( Yes, That’s why :P)
• And yeah, a lot of programming concepts.

Sadly, I did not become any more mature than I am now (Not sad to be honest :D). And no, I did not miss college either.  I just realized schools teach us how to enter a good college. Colleges teach us or at least try to push us into a company. But to know the most essential things in life, we’re left on our own.

P.S. God Bless Stack Overflow! _/\_