How to get an internship? Why are they super important to be the very best?
When someone asks me, how to get started with programming or marketing or anything, I just recommend them applying for an internship. We always sit back and wait to learn more, but instead the best way to learn to code is to implement what you have learned is to do it practically. The first thing would be to apply for an internship, don’t wait to sit at home and learn. Just go and do it.
I got started with a Web development internship back in May 2019, where I made a complete CMS(content management system) on Django, without any prior knowledge of Django. So how did I do it, well it was about motivation but more about keeping the promise. When the company and you agree on a contract it's more like keeping a promise, and you are always in one way or another obliged to do and finish it.
What I learned from my first internship?
1. Working with a team and system.
Well, the most important would be learning to work with people and team. Believe if you have never worked with a team, then the reality is a lot different from the expectation we have. I never had patience if I would code something, and it would work, then I would just go and show it to my team. At first everyone were like “cool! You did it”, but when I started to repeat it. They became irritated and sometimes even told me to have a little patience.
I also learned to work with scrum and the whole process of planning and implementation. I used to think working in team is just combining some little things everyone did, to make a project complete. But I realized it was way more than that, it was about learning from my team members, it was about getting the code structured so that they can read it better and understand them, and it was about making that first step to step up and say your idea.
2. Doing is the better way of learning
When I want to start a new project before, I always started a course related to the programming language I was going to use, and it would last months before I finished them. Then, when the day came when I finished all those videos, I always felt the need to learn more before starting because I wanted to be perfect before starting it.
There is nothing wrong about wanting to learn more, but wanting to be perfect will make you always procrastinate on your project. So I decided to just apply for an internship with the amount of knowledge and experience I had, and luckily I got one. What happened next would change the way I learn anything for the rest of my life. I found out that the best way to learn was to do it. I learned about new ways t do the things in better and practical way by implementing them in my projects. And I always learned something new, whenever I started a new project or even task.
3. Networking and meeting awesome people
Meeting new people and new idea is the best part of living. I always have loved talking to new people and especially discuss anything with them. I became better at thinking before speaking, to make my point clear and precise. Not only that I also meet some new friends during my internship who I were awesome.
There are a lot of stories where people have meet new people through internship and started their own business and became very successful in it. It can be you and me next time, who knows ;).
4. Gain professional feedback
There are two ways of learning for me, one by the mistakes I make and learning from the mistakes others already made for me. :)
Feedback is a vital part of improving oneself, because the process of giving feedback always includes the mistakes you can avoid in the future. Feedback can help us find the “errors” more easily. And the feedback from someone who has taken the same road helps us so much you cant even imagine.
Ok so how can we actually get ourselves an internship?
My story:
I came to Germany in 2020 from Nepal and I just had one goal in my mind when I was new to Germany, and that was get an internship. I completed my 6 months of internship recently and I was actually good enough to get a part-time job as a Student(In Germany, students can only work part-time).
I applied to many places through linked in and indeed. But the major thing that helped me were my GitHub projects. Since I have been programming since a long time , I had some good python and JavaScript projects. They looked at them and easily offered me a position.
So I would recommend you to check the following check list before you apply:
Personal Projects
They are very very very important if you are applying for a job or internship, but dont mistake personal projects with big ones. It can be big if you want but small projects like a tic tac toe game are also very good way of showing you are able to do something with the knowledge you have.
Indeed and Linkedin profile
This is no advertisement or something but these platform really helps you to get recognition in your related field. For example I get many many offers weekly from very reputed companies , how did they find me? Well through these platforms.
You can take a look at my profile and have a idea of how to set it up.
