Internship gone wrong + a wake-up call = my story.

Right off the bat, this is sort of a success story because I managed to make one out of it. So, cheers! 🥂

It was about a year ago, I was all set out to find an internship to keep me running, and keep my resumé from such emptiness it was bestowed with.

I had just graduated from college with a Software Engineering degree, which by the way is a complete scam — wondering why? stay tuned.

So anyway, ignoring the irony of still being an intern after graduation, I was all packed with energy to start doing anything and anything at all.

Apparently, the job searching situation wasn’t really welcoming, so I decided to take matters into my own hand and call every tech company I could find near me. I’m not going to name names, but I found this one place that seemed to be doing well, and so I took my chances.

After bluntly asking if they had any open positions available for a junior developer (the irony), they called me in for an interview.

The next morning I was at their office as early as it could get, to make a good first impression. I could say the interview went well because I was talking. I mean like a lot. Lord knows what I was saying but I was talking so much that they really must have thought I was a pro or something. Which, by the way, is a laughing matter because by that time I was so “fresh” that I haven’t even made a to-do app on my own. Beginner 101.

It went on like that for about half an hour, and then the person who was interviewing me introduced me to one of his colleagues.

That’s when things took the wrong turn.

So, this colleague was like, “so if we could give you a simple project”, he said, “will you be able to deliver by the end of the day?”

Me being the speaking machine I was that day, I was like yeah sure no problem.

But there was. There was a problem. In fact, there were multiple problems. The first being that I had no idea what he was talking about, nor did I know the technologies he requested me to use.

I wasn’t really shocked at first, because what can’t we google these days? Right?

And so I went home and got to it. It was a JavaScript assignment, which I knew not enough of, that creates APIs using Swagger. But of course, I didn’t really know what an API was back then, so by the time I got home I had forgotten the actual problem statement I was expected to solve, but only remembered the words, API, and swagger. So I googled ‘how to make swagger API’.

I’m just going to stop right there because it doesn’t get worse than that. Well, you guessed it — I never went back.😭

THE TAKEAWAY :

Of course, I didn’t laugh about it. I was actually very frustrated about how much time I wasted in college. Precious time I could’ve used to at least be at a point where I wouldn’t google “how to make swagger API”.

I decided to change that and make use of the time lockdown has given me. I learned JavaScript, and later the React Library on my own. Landed a great job contract with a start-up which taught me more about how back end and database stuff works. And now even though I am not a beginner, I still have a long way to go, and much to learn.

So if you’re caught in the same dilemma I was, use that state of confusion as your energy to work harder.

P.S. Knowing what I know now, it was such a simple assignment 🤦🏾‍♀️