“I have been pushing new features to production almost every single week!”

Welcome to #humansofcodam — the internship special!

In these interview series, the students share successes and losses, memorable and learning moments, and everything in between!

Meet Beatriz (26) @ Accenture 🙌

Beatriz is doing her internship in the innovation hub of Accenture. She is one to look out for: she combined her junior software engineering skills with her previous experience as a kick-ass creative project manager! Luckily, she could combine all those skills at Accenture!

Looking back over the past 6 months: what skills did you gain?

“During the last six months, I got to level up my coding skills. At Codam, we learn the low-level language C, which gave me an incredible base to learn other languages while working. That’s what I am doing in my internship, learning new languages.

Next to that, because of the freedom my internship gave me, I realized I don’t have to throw away all the skills I got in my previous career as a content producer, but that the marriage of my previous skills with coding can make me an even more valuable employee. That gave me lots of confidence in my future endeavors!”

What was your favorite moment during your internship?

“My favorite moment was right away in the first week. One of my supervisors said that he wanted us, during the first week, to push something to production on the project we were supposed to work. He asked us on a Wednesday, I spent all of Thursday working on it, and by Friday it was ready! I think it was a great approach of our supervisor to onboard us, so we would immediately feel ownership over the project. Managing to do it right in the first week, set the tone for the rest of the internship, and…

…I have been pushing new features to production almost every single week since then.”

How have you changed during your internship?

“I’ve became humbled by learning all the possibilities you have as a software engineer. A lot of times when you look from the outside you think a programmer can do absolutely everything, but to get there it takes a lot of time and dedication. During my internship, I gained a better understanding of the areas I want to specialize in and what is important to learn to get there!”

What was the toughest challenge during your internship?

“I became a bit overwhelmed with the amount of freedom I got at the start. Because I am working in an innovation hub of a gigantic company there is a lot to do. Even though I was assigned a project, the way they work is really groundbreaking, as I got to give lots of ideas, and implement them as well. With time I learned to prioritize what can add the most value, plus what wouldn’t take too long to implement. So it was really good to lean this organizational skill, once you can be proactive and creative.”

What surprised you the most, either about yourself or about the internship?

“Well, with all the freedom I found I could start to look into technologies that mixed my old profession with my new one. So I started to look into animation, streaming, design and it turns out it is a good combination of skills. Especially streaming came in handy with the current Corona situation. I feel that if given freedom and technical knowledge, people from different backgrounds can bring a lot into tech. Another thing is, that working in such a big company, I thought I would be limited, but my experience was the complete opposite.”

What, in your opinion, would you have done differently looking back now?

“Maybe start my internship 4 months earlier so I could spend more time in the office? Jokes aside, I feel like I did something very different than I was expecting, but it turned out great because, in the end, I was able to create my own project, based on the things I am interested in. I learned a lot from it and was able to be creative, proactive, and implement things I am proud of, which is an ideal way of learning.”

If your internship coordinator would describe you in one sentence, what would he/she say?

“I think he would say I am very creative and energetic, and can also implement my ideas, which is a rare combination of skills!”

Codam Coding College is the only peer-to-peer coding institution in the Netherlands, with a world-class curriculum empowering the next leading generation of tech talent. Through our educational model, students are trained to become qualified software engineers and design inclusive solutions for the challenges of today and tomorrow! At Codam, students build technical expertise and grow adaptability, autonomy, and empathy, in close collaboration with private and public partners. We believe Codam students are ready to #writethefuture!