Practice makes perfect - informatikBOGY interns at punkt.de
You can't turn a student into a web developer in 3.5 days, but you can at least awaken a passion for this area of computer science. As part of informatikBOGY, we tried to introduce Julia, Jan and Pascal to the methods and programming languages used in the web environment.
For the first time this year, punkt.de was involved in informatikBOGY as a partner company and Damian and I took over the supervision of the interns. The informatikBOGY was initiated by the KIT in 2009 and aims to familiarize students with the various fields of computer science. To make this possible, partner companies are being sought to show at least two students what working life is like for a week. The internship week begins with an introduction at KIT. Here, study opportunities are presented and the fields of work of computer scientists are introduced. The interns also receive an introduction to TYPO3. This is how punkt.de became aware of the internship project in the first place.
However, we at punkt.de decided to participate as a partner for other reasons. We want to expand the diversity of IT offered by the internship by passing on our know-how as a web agency. In addition, we see participation as a potential source for the junior staff of tomorrow and can give the prospective computer scientists a good insight into our company and our way of working.
punkt deIn contrast to other partner companies that have focused on programming with Java, we have placed the main emphasis on web programming. After all, that's our day-to-day business. In particular, I decided that we would mainly focus on front-end technologies. There are two reasons for this: Firstly, three days is too short to spend a lot of time installing and setting up a development environment, which could even be off-putting in the worst case, and secondly, I wanted to provide the interns with a platform that has the potential to trigger an immediate sense of achievement. This works well with front-end technologies because you can see changes immediately by making small changes. I can still clearly remember my first steps - and the fascination that HTML and CSS immediately had for me. I wanted to pass that on. In addition, front-end technologies are also close to our interns in that the web interfaces they use every day are largely based on them and can therefore be imitated, at least superficially.
2. Usability
Another topic block consisted of usability, the increasing relevance of which has long been widespread. As the observance of usability guidelines and compliance with standards has long been a concern not only for designers but also for developers, I wanted to convey this at an early stage. The trainees immediately came up with examples of good and bad usability. So the concept seems to have caught on. In order to be able to advise customers better, not just technically, it is advisable to know about the principles of usability and to develop a feeling for them.
3. Scrum
We also taught our three interns the basics of agile web development, as we believe this is the best method for implementing more complex web projects. To this end, Anja, the Scrum Master from Team velo, held a small workshop with the interns. In order to convey the principles and routines of Scrum, we also started each day with a daily, did team exercises and ended the week with a retrospective. One insight from the retrospective: the idea of focusing on front-end technologies was a good one! One of our participants in particular was so enthusiastic about the power and flexibility of the technologies that he can now imagine going in the direction of web development instead of the original focus on hardware and network technology.
Results of the informatikBOGY
The pocket calculator that our informatikBOGY interns started on their first day at KIT has been completely revised and functionally improved. The very simple interface, which can only calculate two numbers with each other, was turned into a small calculator that can do dot-before-dash calculations and can calculate long terms. In addition, the handling was revised so that some incorrect entries were intercepted and visually edited until the interns liked them. Jan, for example, recreated the iPhone calculator:
We also let the interns play around with APIs (interfaces). The result: we were able to integrate randomized cat pictures on pages. The aim here was to teach the interns how to familiarize themselves with technical documentation in order to be able to work independently on questions that arise and to retrieve and use data. The advantage of this task was that the interns were able to develop their own personal skills. Those who preferred to play with design were able to develop their skills. Others were able to concentrate on more complex functionality. Either way, they received help with questions. Everyday life as a developer largely consists of dealing with problems that arise and solving problems creatively.
What experiences do we take away from the informatikBOGY?
Damian and I had a lot of fun carrying out and supervising the interns. After all, we were dealing with clever and bright young people who were curious and open to everything. I also enjoyed preparing for the new task, even if it was a challenge. It was very difficult for me to assess what knowledge and skills the students would bring with them. And it actually turned out that I had underestimated the trainees. They brought far more to the table than I would have thought. Without further ado, the curriculum was overturned and a new one developed dynamically.
We hope that Julia, Jan and Pascal had as much fun as we did. And if we have awakened a new job perspective in them or confirmed the existing one, then we would be even happier. And yes, we would like to be back next year!
