This summer I interned for JWay Group and had a great time building an app using Google’s Flutter. In the 13 week long internship program I got to experience the full process of app development, from ideation and initial design to coding and testing. After this program I feel that I have a much greater understanding of what goes into mobile development and I am confident that I will be able to contribute meaningfully to any mobile development teams/projects I find myself working on going forward. In addition to developing the app, I also feel that I learned a lot from giving weekly presentations to Mr. Sevilla, my manager and Mr. Choi, the CEO. These presentations allowed me not only to receive and respond to feedback which helped me improve my app, but also to experience the type of presentations that are common in the tech industry which will prepare me well for my future career.
From an Idea into Reality
At the beginning of the internship program I was presented with a basic idea for an app to take an existing board game and transform it into a playable app. I spent the first few weeks solidifying the idea and coming up with the design for how I wanted it to look and function. This culminated in my first big presentation in which I stated the full set of functional requirements for the app and provided mock-ups of all the screens I wanted to be present in the app. I’m grateful for the feedback I received from this presentation, both about my plan for the app and about my presentation skills. At first I wanted to just jump straight into programming and figured I would think about what I wanted to make as I was doing it, but now I see the value of this initial presentation. Coming up with an initial plan and design before the programming allowed me to be a lot more focused in my coding, I already knew what needed to get done and I could just go down the list and get things working. This made it so I didn’t get lost in what I was doing or forget what needed to be done, which I know could have easily happened, especially considering this was my first time working on a project of this size.
Flutter Development and Dart Language
After making some changes that were suggested during my presentation, I began the development process. I had a lot of fun working with Flutter and the Dart language. I found it fairly intuitive to begin with my knowledge of similar platforms/languages, and there was a lot of material online to help answer most questions I had. I had to learn a lot to get the app working, but I enjoyed the learning process. At this stage in the program I began giving weekly presentations to provide updates on my progress and receive advice and direction. It was really useful to have an industry professional that I could talk to and ask questions about the app or any technical issues I was having. I frequently had questions that I wasn’t sure how to find the answer online, and Mr. Sevilla was always able to give me a satisfying response. At first making the whole app on my own was daunting and there were some features that I really didn’t know if I’d be able to figure out. But my manager was really supportive and was able to help me a few times when I was stuck and gave me confidence that I could do it. An additional benefit of these presentations was where I was able to work on my presenting skills. Everyone was very nice so I wasn’t too stressed during my presentations, so I was really able to focus on how I was speaking, and I think I have improved a lot since the beginning of this program.
The Final Presentation
The program ended with a final presentation that I gave to some of the people in charge at JWay, including Mr. Sevilla and Mr. Choi who I had been working with up until this point. I talked about the full process of developing the app and the lessons I learned along the way. This was a great way for me to look back at everything I had done and see the growth I made since the start of the program. Looking at everything I had done, I saw what a valuable learning experience this was, and the final presentation was my last opportunity to show my improvement. I think this presentation went a lot better than my first one, and I received a lot of positive feedback. I’m glad I finally got the chance to show off the full app I had made, and it was nice to get positive feedback after all my hard work. It was a satisfying ending to a satisfying internship.
I’m very thankful to JWay for giving me this incredible opportunity. I’m especially grateful to Mr. Sevilla for mentoring me throughout this program and to Mr. Choi for his advice and guidance as well. I had a ton of fun and learned a lot. I’m so proud of what I was able to accomplish during my time with JWay and I’m so glad I got this amazing chance to work on such a cool project. I’m very excited for the next step in my career in software engineering and I feel confident in my abilities that I honed during this internship.
JWay is an application development, digital marketing, and recruitment company with more than 25 years of experience in the industry. If you are interested to apply to the Internship program, you may contact us.
