Fun-crushing the HNG Jinx
The HNG internship is a 3-month remote internship designed to find and develop the most talented software developers. The eight iteration of this program begins today and is being coordinated by the Zuri team. It's target is the post-training phase, and creates a virtual work environment for participants.
Breaking The HNG Internship Jinx
We all have those things that have always seemed like difficult tasks, but ones which we are determined to accomplish anyways. Be it scaling that professional exam, strictly adhering to your workout schedule or even wooing that beautiful lady that lives in your street. Getting to the deeper stages of the HNG internship is one of such things for me.
Put simply, Oga HNG, we die here! After my previous attempt I swore to myself that; that would be my very last attempt, suffice it to say that didn't quite work out as planned. I even forgot that I made that resolution on my way to applying via Zuri.
This my third attempt at this, and like with most things in life, I feel better equipped now to achieve this goal than in my previous attempts. "At least stage five" is the goal I have set for myself this year. Can I do it? Make we dey look.
Gain Industry-level Experience
Having a fair amount of experience as a backend developer using the Python/Django tech stack, I believe that nothing beats actual industry experience when it comes to rapid development. Not even a thousand tutorial videos. Getting your hands dirty with industry-accepted best practices and at the pace required to keep up ensures you don't waste time on things that are not very relevant.
My previous experiences with HNG internship has convinced me that the team is made up of well-versed, industry professionals who can create a great simulation of working in the industry.
I have no less conviction that this year's iteration, being handled by the amazing people at Zuri who have held some amazing trainings, would provide a great platform to gain some more experience on what it means to work as Backend Developer in the industry.
Meet and Connect With Amazing People
10,243. People that I can either compete with or connect with. People that probably have similar goals or entirely different targets. Regardless, I intend to find and connect with like minds. In the 10,243 interns of this year's iteration, I am certain a handful are people I am destined to cross paths with.
Being someone largely lacking in social currency, this is as good an opportunity to improve on that front. This an important goal for me because I have come to understand how having the right people around you could propel you to achieving goals that you could only dream of previously.
Have Fun While At It
In the end this life is too short to not have fun at any given point. Yes; Even at your place of work. The key is enjoying whatever you do. That way you can live a fulfilled, fun-filled life.
Fun will be the underlying theme for me in this iteration of the HNG internship. Fun while carrying out the assigned tasks. Fun while making it to the very end. Fun while wining that HNG T-Shirt. Fun while getting that dream job. Fun while securing the bag. Fun while buying my Tesla. Fun all the way.
P.S: Personally, I do not recommend the HNG internship for absolute beginners. Still it is worth a try. To begin, I would recommend learning the fundamentals for whatever track you are interested in.
For the UI/UX you may want to learn to use figma. If you more into programming I would recommend learning python as it is beginner friendly and feature rich. It also standard practice to use Version Control Systems(VCS) for managing your codebase. So I would recommend learning to use GIT as it is the most popular VCS.