Hello world! My name is Stephen Emmanuel. I recently registered to join the HNG internship season 8 and I believe it is going to be a good experience.
It was quite difficult for me to make up my mind on joining the internship this year. Last year, HNGi7, was my first time in the internship. I had no prior knowledge of what it was about. I was just starting out in tech, with basic knowledge of HTML and CSS. I just began learning JavaScript at the time.
I got to know about the internship last year when it began. Much fuss was made about it on WhatsApp statuses, tech community WhatsApp group, and Twitter and I wondered what it was all about. My curiosity led me to joining. Then, I did not have a laptop, I was using my phone to code. Well, I got to stage 3, but I left on my own advice because it was difficult coping as I had power issues and it was really fast paced.
Earlier this year about some months prior to now, I registered for the Zuri internship organised by zuri.team . Well they are the one organising the HNG programme this year, but the Zuri internship was pretty much for beginners like us, well senior devs joined to oppress us but it's all good. I learnt a couple of things in the internship
Fast forward last week. Well, I now own a laptop, and I have added a number of skills and projects to my portfolio, React, Typescript, Next, UI/UX (Figma), to mention a few. But I was having a hard time making the decision to join.
Exams in my school are starting two weeks from the time of writing this article and I know how emotional draining, and energy sapping this programme is. Plus I am also working as a paid intern, remotely. I was wondering if I could cope with all the stress, so I put up a poll on my WhatsApp status. 100% of the replies said I should join. One reply that cracked me up was "Exam ma tan, finalist tag lo ma ku" 😂. Well, I decided to join, and here I am.
I did not just join to make up the number. I have a number of goals I wish to achieve. Of course, the number one goal is to become a finalist. It's a big deal to become an HNG finalist and put it on all your social media profiles, CV and portfolio. But even if I don't get to the final, the benchmark I set is Stage 7.
I also plan to put up my best performance in group tasks so people can see how good I am. This will make it easier for me to connect, opening doors for more side freelance gigs.
I have worked in teams a couple of times but it is going to be very interesting working with large teams under very much pressure and I will be looking forward to "enjoying" the experience. Did I say "enjoying"? I must be kidding.
Well, its also a means to add more projects to my portfolio and make me more job-ready.
If you are reading this and you are new to tech, or just about deciding to delve into the 'frustrating' world of bugging and debugging. Well, yeah, it's frustrating a lot of times but don't ever attempt to give up. You can check through this tutorials below to get you started.
UI/UX With Figma: youtube.com/watch?v=g6rQFP9zCAM
Git For Beginners: youtube.com/watch?v=8JJ101D3knE
HTML For Beginners: youtube.com/watch?v=qz0aGYrrlhU
Python For Beginners: youtube.com/watch?v=rfscVS0vtbw
Thanks for reading. Signing out, Steph Crown