It’s very rewarding to spend time with talented and passionate young people, especially if you share the same interests. Some of our colleagues had the pleasure of mentoring a group of interns for the entire month of August.When the .NET internship was about to end, we wanted to find out what motivates young people to spend a great chunk of their summer vacation with us and whether or not they consider it was worthwhile. You can read their thoughts and impressions below:
[Catrinel]: I decided to take an internship this summer because I wanted to see what's really like working in an IT company. I thought it will be useful and instructing to confront as soon as possible the work environment, to get a taste of what working in this field means. Moreover, I wanted to learn something new.[Rares]: I like to spend most of my time learning new things, especially in the field of programming. I've spent my last 2 summers learning by working on personal projects. I was going to do the same this summer, but I wanted a good challenge, so an internship seemed to be the right choice.[Marian]: I thought it would be a much better idea to see how a programming company works and what it expects from its employees. You can enjoy the summer in the evenings, and in my opinion it's better to learn something than to just spend the whole summer doing nothing.
[Catrinel]: I wanted to stay in my hometown this summer, find an internship in Oradea, get to know a company from here too. I also got accepted for an internship in Cluj, but I preferred being home this year, since I will probably stay in Cluj the next one. Why Qubiz? Well, I heard it was one of the biggest IT companies in Oradea, so it caught my attention. I took a look around your website and Facebook page and when I saw the internship offer I sent my CV right away.[Rares]: As a student at "Emanuil Gojdu" National College I was able to qualify along with my team for the All-Star Contest of American Computer Science League. However, the contest was going to take place in Orlando, Florida. Given the magnitude of the trip we were supposed to take, our team asked for financial help from multiple IT companies in Oradea, and Qubiz was among the few that heard our call. This, along with a meeting we had with some of your HR people gave me a great boost of confidence as it was clear that the company is interested in developing people.[Marian]: I heard that Qubiz is a good company and I liked what I found out about you at the internship matchmaking event at the University.
[Catrinel]: My biggest challenge was myself: dealing with my anxiety before the actual start of the internship. This was my first internship… so it was a new experience for me. I didn’t know exactly what to expect and how to evaluate my skills due to my lack of experience. I am usually confident, but still, I was afraid that I’ll disappoint myself and the ones I was working with. I just wanted to give the best of me hoping I would manage to do that. Anyway, after we started it all turned out alright.[Rares]: I faced the biggest challenge on the week after the internship when I realised that I got used to waking up at 8 AM, to going to the office and working on the project… I was missing the extraordinary environment of the office and all the great people I met. During the internship, there was no challenge that stood out. We faced challenges big and small every day. We managed to find solutions to each problem by helping each other, and if that didn't work, we could always ask our mentors for a little help.[Marian]: The biggest challenge for me was learning all the new things. It seemed that there's something new every day. There was just a small amount of time to get used with the new things.
[Catrinel]: I liked the fact that everybody was so open and available. I think the guys that were teaching and mentoring us helped us a lot. We were always popping questions and they were happy to answer them, helping and teaching us, providing information and documentation… and all kinds of helpful materials. I really liked the atmosphere: friendly and professional at the same time. Also, the other interns were really nice. We formed together a convergent little team in which we helped and pushed each other to learn more.[Rares]: It's very hard for me to decide whether it was the wonderful mentors we had, or the package of information we received, that I like the most. I had the opportunity to meet great people with a lot of passion for what they do and to learn a handful of fascinating things in the very short time we had. I consider that the internship was great as a whole.[Marian]: I really liked how people are communicating with each other: a helpful hand was always given when it was needed. Also your sense of humor is awesome.
[Catrinel]: I learned a lot from this internship, from all of you, not only professionally speaking. I enjoyed this experience very much; I liked the team, I learned a lot of things, as I said, since I had no previous experience, most of what we did was new to me. I improved and enriched my technical knowledge. Furthermore, I learned to work in a team: to rely on my team mates, to cooperate, to respect other people's approach on the solution, to adapt to it and to make the most out of it. It was a really nice experience.[Rares]: I was able to dig deeper into the things I already knew, while also learning a lot of new things that made my initial spark for programming fire up. Even now that the internship is over, I keep working on different small projects to see how I can use all the information I've absorbed "just like a black hole" in these 4 weeks.[Marian]: I had a good assessment of where my skills are. I’m very motivated to continue the learning process.
[Catrinel]: I would, because of the open and well-prepared people, friendly environment, nice workplace, and the overall atmosphere you can find at Qubiz. I enjoyed being with you guys very much.[Rares]: Definitely I would. The internship at Qubiz gave me the feeling that the person teaching me is giving his/her best to advance my knowledge and to develop my process of thought. The friendly environment of the office is great for learning and just as I said earlier, the people you meet are incredible and always willing to help. It's an experience I'm glad I had and I will remember it for a very long time.[Marian]: Yes. Because it's a nice place with nice people who are more than willing to help you learn everything you need to start your career in software development.