New in Town
Tags: internship, javascript, beginners, webdev
Published: 2023-02-14 16:17:59


I was introduced to [Mile Two](miletwo.us) a year before I had even started considering internship options. I was pulled to a booth at my college's career fair and was instantly hooked on the culture the representatives seemed to ooze, only paying minor attention to the type of software work they did. I spent the next year working to ensure that I was the best candidate they had when they browsed their pool of interns for Spring 2020. When it came time, I turned in my resume, went in for an interview the next week, and was offered the internship on the spot! Quite the relief considering I had no back up plans. I had taken every step to get me where I wanted to be for the past year, so you can imagine my stomach dropping when I was handed the syllabus filled with words I had never heard; React, Javascript, SASS, API, GraphQL. 


![New Girl sobbing scene gif](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/tmbxiexp8kstkswlq6kn.gif)

For some context, I had been a stay at home mom/on-again-off-again student for the past four years with no experience in Computer Science. I picked my major at random, looking for a school program that I could complete mostly online and only had the knowledge that two years in community college had given me. I was paired with interns with Bachelor's Degrees+ and portfolios containing examples of code they'd written and sites they'd built. I was shown examples of current projects M2 had been working on and introduced to published authors, bloggers, and all around impressive people they had on their staff. I had never felt more under-qualified in my life.


![Among Us Imposter gif](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/l5xpyvrajmwpl6be1plc.gif)

I went home crying to my husband that I was a fraud and would never belong in this field surrounded by people who seemed to have been born coding (I later learned the term _imposter syndrome_) but started my deep dive into Google.


![Typing excessively gif](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/9pe9ctmqyjwwmag287hv.gif)

The next day I went in trying to stay positive and act like I belonged there. I went home every night with a new list of things to research ("What is an API?") and came to work every day ready to fix all of my code from the day before. I got to know the people who had fallen in love with the same culture that I did and mastered the fancy coffee machine as the first person in the office each day. There was never a moment that I felt like a light switched on and I was suddenly a real developer, but over time I found myself able to give answers to other people's problems, creating complex functions, and finally writing my own code instead of ~~copying~~ being _inspired by_ StackOverflow.


![Ben Stiller success gif](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/ybt6nemmxgaivrv4e2me.gif)

Fast forward through the change to remote work (thanks Covid), school graduation, and a dabble in customer work, and I was offered a job as an Associate Software Engineer at Mile Two. I had done it. Last month I hit my 3 year work-aversary and have worked on multiple teams on different projects within the company. I have reached Mid Level Engineer and fully immersed myself into the culture that first brought me to M2. I have made best friends, led working groups, and hosted "Lunch & Learns". I have truly become the Software Engineer that little baby Intern Lindsay was so inspired by. This year I'm helping to reignite the internship program that gave me **so much**. If I could go back and shake some sense into Intern Lindsay, here are some advice tidbits I'd drill into her skull:

- YOU BELONG HERE. You aren't a good enough liar to fake an entire resume. You were hired because **they believe in you**.
- GOOGLE EVERYTHING. I've heard more people in this field say they are a professional Google-r than any other way to describe the job. They aren't wrong. That super impressive Senior Dev writing huge chunks of complex code? Googling.
- If/When Google fails, there is not a single person at M2 who doesn't want you to succeed. The company truly lives by it's Core Values, including **Success is a Team Effort**. _Ask for help_.


![Let's do this gif](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/maery9h4wlnas00gs4fb.gif)