Documenting my HNGi8 Journey - How it started.
My preparations and plans for the internship.
Cover photo by Matese Fields on Unsplash
What this article contains
- A brief introduction to the HNG internship program.
- What the internship means to me and my expectations.
- My personal plans for the internship and what drives me.
- Some preparations I made ahead of the internship with some resources that I found helpful.
What is the HNG Internship Program?
Founded by Mark Essien, A Nigerian Tech-Entrepreneur and Leader. The internship is a fast-paced educational program designed to attract highly talented and dedicated software developers across Africa, put them to the test with real-world projects and tech industry standards, and those who scale through - or "survive" as some of the finalists would say- get to go home with a branded T-shirt specially made for the program, though this is the only reward that is promised to finalists, completing the program does come with a lot more benefits like recognition and a reliable form of certification as many tech startups seem to trust the process that takes place in the program and would readily employ any candidate who made it through. The internship takes place remotely usually on slack, it consists of 10 stages of task completion over a period of 8 weeks, with increasing difficulty with every new stage attained and of course, deadlines for each task.
Now, let's talk about what the current HNG internship looks like - For a couple of years now, Seyi Onifade (Xyluz) has been known as the program leader, working closely with mark to structure it better every year. According to Mark, Seyi is one of the finalists from HNG i1, the first-ever HNG internship program which was held about 8 years ago, and he has since then dedicated time and effort every year to help organize and structure the program. This year's program is hosted by the Zuri team and is preceded by a more beginner-friendly training for the sake of those who are new to web development.
What I am looking to gain from this internship program.
The 2021 version of the HNG internship program (HNG i8) has now kicked off on the 15th of August, 2021 and I am in the program for the third year running, looking back and comparing my current skill-set and knowledge with what I had in my previous attempts, I do feel a lot more confident because, compared to my first attempt, I now have two years more experience under my belt -- but is that even a thing? isn't it what I have done within that time that really matters? Yes, and asides from the fact that I have actually worked hard to get better in that time period, in the next section, I'll highlight some of the personal preparations I made prior to the commencement of the HNGi8 program, and I made these preparations based on my experiences and weaknesses in my previous attempts.
On this attempt, my primary goal is to gain some hands-on experience writing code for production and working with others, also the internship comes with a bonus soft skill of handling pressure, which is something I look forward to. Making the finalist will be a plus benefit as well as a good sign that I am ready, which is an affirmation that I still seek and the reason why I haven't had enough confidence to really apply for tech jobs and get my first developer role in the industry.
How ready am I, this time?
Photo by Clemens van Lay on Unsplash
As I have mentioned that this is my third attempt at the internship, I'll like to start this section with a brief summary of my previous attempts. In 2019 - well, this one was barely an experience, I definitely joined the program too early in my developer career as I had just started learning to code using python, with some help and support from Adetola whom I had just met on Twitter.
Fast-forward to 2020, I had already learned the Django web framework and I was really confident with it because around the time, I did find my little soft skill which sets me apart from the average developer - the fact that I enjoyed reading the docs and implementing the best practices, a trait which has since manifested in every stack I have learned or used. Again, I couldn't make it past stage 3 of the internship, and this time I did drop the program myself because I really could not keep up at that point as we had a lot of teamwork going on and I barely even knew any git commands, plus the other guys seem to know so much about production code and deployment but all I had was a couple of Django projects on localhost port 8005.
Unrelated, but if you're wondering why and/or how it's port 8005 rather than the default 8000, the "how" is that you could actually specify a port at the end of your runserver commands like
python manage.py runserver 8005, and I do this because I have the freeCodeCamp project running on my localhost port 8000 by default.
Continuing from where I left off - To put myself in a better position at this year's internship program, I worked extensively with git these past few months, also deployed as many of my projects as possible using platforms like Heroku, PythonAnywhere, Firebase, Netlify and Vercel. I did learn a couple more stacks to be dynamic and fit better into a team - also something I learned at the internship, I now use and love Java ( I learned this due to two Java-based courses I took as part of my degree program at UoPeople ), been hot with my ReactJS + NextJS builds to, thanks to Sonny Sangha and the #PAPAFAM
Links to some of the best-structured learning resources that helped me develop myself.
Learning Backend Tech?
- Introduction To Programming Using Java by David J. Eck - A comprehensive beginner to intermediate introduction to the Java programming language and Programming as a whole.
- Python Cheat Sheet - A web-based version of the Official Python Cheat Sheet originally made by Eric Matthes.
Learning Frontend Tech?
- Responsive Web Design course by FreeCodeCamp - The perfect introduction to frontend web development, starting with basic HTML, CSS to some intermediate CSS concepts.
- The Modern JavaScript Tutorial - Detailed explanation of JavaScript concepts from beginner to advanced level, with best practices.
Design - UI/UX
- Introduction to Figma by Design Lab - A beginner-friendly introduction to the figma design tools and concepts.
Git
Conclusion
In this article, I outlined my goals and expectation for the now started HNGi8 - the eight edition of the HNG internship program, and I shared some some of my preparation exercises with some useful links. Like the title suggests, this article will be followed by a "How it's going" edition sometime during the program, and then a "How it ended" edition at the end of the program, irrespective of my successful completion of the program.