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Summer Internship Series at Zesty.io, Post Five: Finishing Up the Internship

This is the fifth and final article in a series by our summer intern, Ronak.

For the past eight weeks, I've been working at a startup in downtown San Diego called Zesty.io. And it's been pretty great.

I've gotten to work with awesome people, get into nerf fights, and see all the sides of a startup. It's an experience I wouldn't trade for anything in the world, and in this article I'm going to try to highlight some of the most important things I've learned.

Ask Questions

I'll be the first to admit: initially, it can be extremely scary to ask questions. Being an intern usually means you're at the bottom of the food chain, and it also means it can be super scary to ask questions (that people with more experience might find stupid) to your higher ups.

The best thing I can say to that is don't be. At Zesty, the biggest reason I've been able to learn so much is simply because I've taken an interest in asking questions. Thankfully, everyone at Zesty has been more than receptive to answer questions, and as a result I've been able to learn far more than what my internship originally called for, and also do all kinds of things. From learning about how our platform works to simply getting help with code, the questions I asked helped tremendously to build my knowledge.

Google, Google, Google

While asking questions is super important, knowing how to Google is equally important. Not only can you find the answer your looking for, Googling also builds in you a debugging flow for you to fall back on whenever you run into issues.

Additionally, when you do ask a question, it's super helpful to know what exactly you need help with so that way you can get proper help. Rather than simply point to your code and say "Why isn't it working", you can pinpoint where you think the issue is and get better help.

Talk to People!

I'm a very introverted person by nature, but one thing I realized quickly is that talking to people about things (it can be anything, from work to movies to nerf guns) not only gets you out of your comfort zone, but can also help you learn more. One of my favorite parts during Zesty was going to San Diego JS's monthly meeting. Not only did I get to hear great talks by Stuart Runyan and Grant Glidewell, but I also got a chance to network a bit and learn about different ideas in Javascript.

Listen

At Zesty, we start each day at 10am with our Daily Developer Standup (which we do sitting down). I love starting each day like this because it gives me a way to hear what everyone else is working on. Hearing what everyone did each day gives me a neat way to see what life is like as a Software Developer and also exposes me to all sorts of technologies that I otherwise might never have known to exist.

When I first got the offer to work at Zesty this summer, I was super excited to start. I had no idea I would have this much fun, learn so much, and all in all have such a great time. I'm super thankful to the Zesty.io team for having me this summer. Special thanks to Simon Prickett and Randy Apuzzo for being super amazing mentors the whole time, I've loved working here.

By Ronak Shah

My name is Ronak Shah, and I’m a software developer and designer based in Southern California. I’m currently an incoming freshman to UC San Diego, majoring in Computer Science and interning with Zesty.io for the summer.

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