This summer we took a new approach to our internship, rather than having our interns work on an internal project, we gave them the opportunity to shadow our consultants and work on client projects. Our interns have put together a quick recap of each of their experiences below.
Spencer, Advanced Insights Intern
Two years older (and hopefully wiser), I’ve come back for my second internship with UDig to some new faces and a much larger office but the same culture of incredibly talented people that love what they do. It’s this culture that has made my summers at UDig so rewarding. This year, I was given the opportunity to work on a project for one of UDig’s clients, a large Virginia state agency. This experience of being able to meet with and do work for a client has helped me better appreciate the process of consulting, which will be invaluable to me and my future career goals. Emma (another intern) and I were given the task of producing a proof-of-concept for Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and the various tools available within that relatively new and exciting field, such as BluePrism, UiPath, WinAutomation, and WorkFusion. We’ve learned a lot about the potential RPA has for reducing overhead and freeing up employees from time-consuming and repetitive tasks. We’ve also gained experience with some of the leading software options currently available. But most importantly, we’ve gained experience dealing with some of the common problems and solutions that come up when doing work for a client. This kind of real-world experience is something I don’t get during school and I am grateful for the opportunity to have continued my education outside of the classroom.
Emma, Client Services Intern
Interning with UDig this summer has offered real-life and hands-on experience. Specifically, working with Spencer on a RPA project gave me a lot of insight into consulting—insight I wouldn’t get in a classroom. We started with 9 RPA tools which we narrowed down to UiPath, Blue Prism, WinAutomation, and WorkFusion. Spencer and I built processes with each vendor and documented our progress. At the end of the summer we presented our work to the client and offered a recommendation. Working closely with a client on a project has been a priceless experience. Not only did we learn how to work with clients, but we were exposed to a newer technology—RPA. The RPA market is only just emerging, and it’s been invaluable researching, analyzing and building processes with some of the market front-runners. Not only did we focus on RPA, but we presented to the company on a book called “The Trusted Advisor”. Known as the ‘Consultants Bible’, it offered lots of advice and insight into the consulting business. After the presentation, the audience engaged in an enthusiastic discussion based around the book. Being a part of an active reflective discussion was interesting and I’m thankful for that opportunity. The purpose of reading the book was to gain more knowledge on dealing with clients. Our task was to read, analyze, and present a summary of the important tips from the book. We included how to build trust with a client, how to maintain relationships, and even provided some example dialogue. Interning with UDig has been nothing but awesome; the people are welcoming and incredibly smart. It’s the perfect atmosphere to grow and gain experience.
Marin, Software Engineering Intern
As soon as I read the application for this internship last fall, I knew that UDig was the place I wanted to be this summer. And the fact that I was hired and treated like one of the team from the beginning was a huge blessing, more than I think anyone will ever know. Through this opportunity, I was able to work with a valued client and learned different application development topics such as Scrum, Angular, Jasmine, Git, application ideation, and the UX/UI design process. Before this summer, I had only been briefly introduced to the concept of Scrum in my classes. By actively participating in my team’s ceremonies (such as daily stand-ups, grooming, sprint planning, etc.) I got to see the start-to-finish development process, which I know is a key (yet often forgotten) part of development that will be invaluable for me moving forward in my career. I also learned through observation (and a handy-dandy book called “The Trusted Advisor” by David Maister) that being a great consultant is not only about technical prowess, but also how you utilize your soft skills and interact with your team, your co-workers and your clients with intention and respect. The mentorship component of this internship I found to be my favorite part, and through interactions with my mentor, Tom, and our client team, I got to watch firsthand how to be an impactful leader through knowledge and teaching, to give advice humbly, to collaborate effectively and to communicate efficiently. Because of this internship I have learned who I want to be as a developer and was provided with the kindness, encouragement, and inspiration to make this a reality. I am beyond thankful for this experience and excited to see how I’ll get to use this new knowledge in my senior year at JMU as well as in my future career as a young woman in tech. I can say with pride: I can dig it.
Nate, Data Enablement Intern
Interning this summer at UDig has been a fantastic experience as I have had the opportunity to work in a professional environment on a couple of large financial applications. I have learned a lot about the development process in an agile environment while gaining experience with numerous technologies such as Git, .NET, Amazon Web Services, and other resources along the way. My main task for the summer was configuring logging solutions for these applications to send to Amazon Web Services from a variety of locations and environments in the application. I had no idea what to expect coming into this internship, and I am happy to say I gained a ton of knowledge this summer working on meaningful projects. The technologies I worked with are important modern skills for developers to know and I was excited to get the chance to gain exposure to them on real professional applications.
Everyone I interacted with throughout my internship was extremely welcoming and knowledgeable in their field. My mentor, along with the teams I worked with, assisted me whenever necessary and made me feel comfortable in a professional development environment. Whenever I was not working on client tasks, I was learning and experiencing things through UDig such as reading the Trusted Advisor book on consulting or utilizing UDig’s Udemy for business to learn new technologies. We also had numerous opportunities this summer to attend company events to gain insight into the social and cultural aspects of a company such as UDig. UDig has a very professional yet fun culture that was easy to feel accepted into. After getting a chance to work on my projects and UDig activities throughout the summer, I feel more confident in both my professional skills and technical abilities. Overall, interning this summer at UDig has been an amazing experience and I can definitely say I have learned a lot, while providing what I hope is meaningful work on real projects.
If you are interested in pursuing an internship opportunity with UDig please reach out to us at contact@udig.com.
