by When we go to college, we are desperate to learn. But after some time, we realize that we lost that feeling. Since all our projects are wasted, we just want to deliver something that works, without having to worry about patterns, best practices or maintainability.
This year, I stopped and I realized that I had lost my desire to learn. My solution was to leave the university parallel (upside down) world and start attending workshops, meetup groups and courses.
Then, I had the chance to take a test to become an intern at Codeminer 42, where they told me to write a REST API, so even if I didn’t pass I would learn a lot.
I had to learn the basics of Node.js, JavaScript and Mongo in one weekend to develop my API. When I delivered my code, I was amazed by what you can do if you have a goal.
I started at Codeminer 42 two weeks ago. The office where I work, in Sorocaba, had an idea that is helping me a lot. They made a Kanban board for the interns with tasks ideas that we could choose. I got really worried on my first day when I noticed “give a talk” and a “give a class” were showing up on the board. What would I talk about? I know nothing interesting for the market, everything I know is academic related.
Kanban Board
On the first week, I had almost finished the test refactoring, a task taken from the Kanban. I could not believe the difference when I compared the code that I delivered with the refactored one. While I was developing, they were always pushing me to improve my code. I thought it was already good compared to the previous one, but then they showed me a suggestion that would improve it even more.. I had never had this experience, being around people that know so much and want to share their knowledge. Thanks to that, they gave me support and confidence to submit my talk to the local Node.js group for their first meetup.
On the second week, I prepared the talk and the code for the presentation. Friday, I gave the talk at the office, because we have Tech Talks every week. In parallel, I was taking the CodeSchool courses and started learning a bit about the Ruby language. So, Caique (another intern) and I decided to give a class in the group In.Coda.Do about Ruby and Rails. Everyone can join this group for learning and for teaching. It was my first time participating.
](https://i0.wp.com/blog-codeminer42.s3.amazonaws.com/legacy-posts-images/my-first-2-weeks-at-codeminer-42/1*C1OULqoC-FQ_ThwvpYuusQ.jpeg?w=1200)
https://www.meetup.com/In-Tegra-Do/events/235084487/
Finally, this Monday, I gave my first talk to a general public, “Structuring an API using Node.js and Express”, http://slides.com/carolinapascalecampos/structuring-an-api-using-node-js-and-express, to 25 people and it felt amazing!
My presentation at Meetup Node.js
Meetup Node.js
So, in two weeks I have learned and grown more than I ever could have imagined. Thanks to the Codeminer42 team. And I hope I can pass this knowledge on to the community, particularly to the university students that have the same feeling that I had.
Thanks to Guilherme Vinicius Moreira, Thiago Araújo Silva, and Tiárli Oliveira.
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