From work experience to working as a Junior Developer

Hello, I’m Ben, a student who has just finished Year 13.

I had work experience at Studio 24 for 3 weeks last summer. It was really great to have learned how build an interactive map during that time, but I remember thinking that I wanted to do more. It inspired me to undertake a 7-week position as a Junior Developer this summer.

I first learnt about Studio 24 when Simon gave a talk at my college, and thank god he did! With these two opportunities I have been given, my web development skills have greatly improved and it’s also shaped the way I think about programming.

Working and learning

This year, I worked for almost two months and I felt I achieved a lot more. I had the pleasure of exploring different technologies. One of them is Laravel, a widely used framework for PHP, which I used to create a reporting tool for the Studio 24 sales team.

Not only was I able to create things from scratch, but I also got to communicate with clients and perform fixes for their websites.

It’s not all smooth sailing, but if you like sailing, it doesn’t matter! There were instances where I would get stuck on fixing something – usually due to me encountering a new feature – and I would have no clue how to fix it. Should it have been my decision, we would’ve rewritten the code, however larger projects tend to not be so forgiving about this.

Luckily, I had the team for support when I needed them, whether that was Nicki helping me with the HTML, Claire helping out with the client communication or Sean for basically everything else!

They not only helped me fix the issue, but they showed me their ways of locating issues so that I could use this framework for later issues (which I did, a lot).

Next stop university

Uni will be a new beginning for me, making new friends and living on my own. So, to succeed in this new environment, stepping out of my comfort zone and adapting to new situations is crucial. Also, I will need to find a healthy balance between total freedom and day to day responsibilities.

Working here at Studio 24, I have learnt to balance client work and internal work. This is one of those skills that is not achievable by yourself. And working here has also kept me in the rhythm of a normal day, which has prevented me from rotting away in my bed.

Once again, I’m incredibly grateful to everyone who supported me throughout this journey. This experience wouldn’t have been possible without them. I really enjoyed my time here and I look forward to the future.