Internship 2021 9 August 2021

The kick off week!

Our journey into tech started with us kicking off the first week of internship program at the Surfboard Payments HQ in Chennai. We had a warm welcome from Koushik and the rest of the team at Surfboard Payments.

Anoop Narayanan

Intern @ Core Illustrio

Its a few weeks back that we heard about the mentorship program arranged by Core illustrio and we decided to join there. We were offered a six week mentorship program, which gave us the opportunity of working along with real-time software engineers and learning what they actually work upon. We came here with an inconfident mind of not knowing what and how are we going to deal with this new phase.

We reached Chennai where the startup mentorship program was happening. Koushik welcomed us with a smiling face and showed us our rooms and helped us settle in. They had arranged stay and food for us. The stay was well maintained and the food was delicious and healthy as well.

Surprisingly, all of us had graduated from different universities and different branches too.The one thing uniting us was the STARTUP-MENTORSHIP Program and our desire to enter the software industry. While handling technology, during the engineering days is when we started understanding that Software is an inseparable part of any industry. That's when an interest of knowing what the software industry came to us. Our mind was oscillating between how does a non-software guy face this training and how do we learn programming from scratch. When we reached Surfboard payments, where we were supposed to undergo training, we did not know what to expect. All we had was a vision, a dream of being a developer.

Surfboard Payments was a chill environment. While we reached there, it was around lunch time. The employees in Surfboard payments gave us food and helped us settle in. We were welcomed in a very friendly manner by unknown faces. What we saw a group of people who knew what they were doing in every moment of their work. While some were working, some were playing in the games area. The welcoming face of everyone around us made us feel a little at ease and happy. They even made us play alongwith, so as to help us blend with them.

The ergonomic environment, urban interiors, focus rooms and spacious meeting rooms in the office made the workspace a peaceful one and this made us feel fresh throughout the day.

"Welcome to the world of programming. Let's learn it simple, it is simple". Internships first session started with such a positive note. As we came from different streams of technology, developing a base and then teaching us the complexities of programming was the prime strategy. Providing us with everything to develop skills and knowledge, and letting us free to learn and explore was the main idea behind this mentorship program. A question of what are the skills required to become a developer arised, but the only answer we knew was ' To know programming language'. As time went by, we started understanding that being a developer is not just about being an expert in programming. We had a lot more skills required than just programming. Each day we had a session of how can these required skills be developed.

Certain skills whose fundamentals has been laid in the schooling days were to be developed and utilised to become a developer. Mentorship structure, which is based on the dreyfus-dreyfus model guaranteed us a growth from novice state to an advanced beginner.

Library in the office had enough source of developing the skill as a reader. Grabbing a coffee and reading a book from the library helps to develop your reading skill. Every day we were asked to write an article of the learnings each day which gives us an insight of what we learnt on that day and also developed our skill in writing.

Problem solving was the other skill required on the path to programming. How to solve a problem? How do we divide it so as to attain a proper result? How do we understand the difference between constrains and problems? Questions were arised and we were finding answers through the discussion and the sessions. The mathematical thinking which was also a kind of problem solving was also developed. The skill of how to think mathematically, helped us in developing the skill of how to solve a problem when arised in front of us. We learnt the basics of these skills and when we were divided into teams and given puzzles and riddles. This group solving helped us not only to develop the skills required, but also to connect with people in and out. We were able to takeaway a lot of lesson, which included the ability of solving problems in real-life too. This session helped us to look through problems in a better perspective.

Looking forward technically into the program, what we expected was endless lectures along with notes and books to refer and learn and will be asked to write tests but what we received was LINUX laptop with just a black screen. Staring at the screen we realised that we are going to start from the basics, the literal basics of computation and programming. We were going through the sessions alongside in which our mentors helped us through. They sat patiently to help us through the learning process. They were really friendly and understanding, as that was how Surfboard works. Its past a week since this internship has started and a person who doesn’t even know what programming is has reached a stage of programming in LINUX on our own without even learning LINUX.

Cultural talk, is one of the most unique ideology followed at Surfboard payments. Its a weekly learning session that provides us an insight and knowledge about different cultural topics. This includes start-up culture, cultural history and also cultural topics that was relevant for us and our life. We also got chances of discussing our thoughts and opinions during the cultural talk session. This session is open to questions, discussions and debates.

Way back to the room, the laundered clothes and cleaned room gave us a welcoming atmosphere. All we had to do was have food, learn and relax. Providing a safe home and environment even through this tough pandemic times made us feel safe and comfortable

There are no over-pressure of doing anything. The topic of 'responsibility over obligation' which was a part of the culture talk taken, completely prevailed throughtout. The people around us just knew when to take up the responsibility, when to have fun, when to learn and when to finish the deadlines. This Surfboard model even made us take up the responsibility of being an intern and utilise the space and freedom as much as possible.

Its just five days of internship that we have finished, but with the environment and exposure provided we are reaching a stage where we have a confidence that even non IT guys like us can learn programming and develop apps and modules of our own. Every Friday evening's are sports days where we go to play outdoor games. By the last day of the first week of mentorship, we were playing with friends who were just strangers on the first day.

We are growing, not just through this mentorship as a developer but as a person who has different perspective of world and life. Even though a lot is yet to be learnt, the weekend started off with a lot of knowledge from the last week and a fresh mind.