Internship 2021 16 August 2021

The confidence booster!

Second week started with technical lectures from Abraham, the CTO & Co-Founder of Surfboard Payments. On top of that we got to be a part of something that gave us a huge confidence boost.

Anoop Narayanan

Intern @ Core Illustrio

The first week of mentorship ended of with a lot of information and a game night. We marched into this week with a lot of energy and curiosity. As we have become familiarised with the faces around and the culture surrounding us, the world of learning felt even more easy, relatable and approachable. Mentorship became a little more fun and interactive as we were really close to the mentors and other people around in surfboard. Everyone was so approachable at any time and they would help us till the moment we understood ant concept. The faces became more familiar, jokes became more funnier and the interaction and learning became a little more comfortable. We were continuing the second week of mentorship with the base we had laid during the first week of mentorship. We were continuing the session of the skill development and different aspects from the last week. We took a travel through the technology into the past and future. This gave us an idea of how much we have grown from the first physical computer and how far are we yet to travel. We then learnt about data, information,language and many other requirements for being a developer. Point by point we are moving towards our goal of being a software developer.

We were given the opportunity by mentors to do presentation and reports, which would help us to gain more knowledge and confidence. Inorder to do the presentation we had to research, discuss and do a lot more that made us a little more enthusiastic and driven towards knowledge.

We are provided with different facilities such as the mail id and an LMS through which we will have assignments and questions being shared. The LMS used for this purpose was developed by the Professional services team in Surfboard. We were not just utilizing this situation for checking how useful it is for us but also to check how the app is doing and if there are any issues being raised. We were learning indirectly how does testing team work and what are the steps involved in it. Submiting assignments and doing a lot of group discussion and things helped in the development of our knowledge.

Its an another level of experience of learning without even teaching theories or imparting facts. We never felt forced or pressured. Everything was self learning here. More than just teaching us to do something pre-prepared, they showed us directions and asked us to find way through it. Interact, investigate and learn from each other, thats the motto everyone followed here. Use a knowledge you have before or create a new knowledge for the moment. This was just developing on the base that we have built on the last weeks session. And thats how the whole session is designed. Each and everything has a significance and is interconnected. We even started experiencing the power of taking up the responsibility and doing the work rather than being just nagged from behind.

We also found an inspiring story amongst our group. Ernest, one among the software developers in Surfboard was happy about his app which is going online the next day. He was a mechanical engineering graduate who was in a sales job first and then shifted to the software field. Its was just around seven months ago that he joined the company. He started from self-developed app was going online. This gave us an unbelievable amount of confidence and boost in us, so as to look forward to the mentorship and learn to become a developer of our own apps and services.

Demo meeting, which is held on every friday evening, is not only about the employees showing demo about their work and improvements achieved, but a great platform for knowledge transfer. Its a great opportunity for anyone to learn and know what's happening in and around the company. This time during the demo meeting we had a little more of our activities to present as our demo.

The week ended with the 'Sports night'. Even the sports night this time seemed a lot different. It gave a feeling of playing around friends whom we have known for a long time. This is how much we have been transformed within a span of two weeks. Looking forward to the next week with them to learn more and experience this journey.