How to grow from intern into junior position
Tags: beginners, productivity, career, intern
Published: 2022-03-04 12:39:24

Being an intern isn’t something people are passionate about for some reason, they have become so focused on bashing the position, but I want to express how you can turn that position into a time worthy position.

## State of mind

![brain block](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/0jruqnnn34yh67eypuwv.jpg)
- You in a intern from the company perspective, but for you this is a chance to prove yourself to yourself, to see where you lack then catch up, to make mistakes with small side effects, to learn how things are done right. Your chance to close the gap between whats given in school and whats needed in the work force.
- Which ever decision you take about how you want the position to go is exactly the one that will play out, so set a high standard for yourself and focus on nothing else but producing a better version of you, high quality work and believe me you have it in you.
- Your confidence in yourself will allow your senior to trust you and brag about you, and that's what you want to happen. So be confident and work on producing work you will be confident about later on.

## Forget what you know


- My senior showed me once that learning something with the idea that you know it is working against yourself, to truly know something is to master it. So if you're re-learning something you have not mastered, simply accept not knowing it and learn it correctly.
- With that said its important to practice whatever you have learnt or are learning, unfortunately, no language can be mastered by just reading code and books. Write Code.
- Build small [projects](https://dev.to/javinpaul/8-projects-beginners-can-build-to-learn-reactjs-in-2022-1e3i) either these on the link or choose any other language your employer needs you to master.

## Make learning your habit


![https://unsplash.com/photos/JO8U_9lq9PY?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditShareLink](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/z4z1ngrdushwr77hcsjn.jpg)

- Don't allow yourself to learn something for the sake of having learnt many tools or languages, or just to finish a task. Make the process of learning useful things a part of your weekly or monthly process.
- Make sure you align those tools and languages you learn with your personal career goals or the job you in, you want to be the go to guy for resourceful learning.
- Avoid spending forever watching tutorials, avoid being satisfied with just learning something. Create little personal projects that will help you and build your confidence and integrity.
- Trust the process, don't push too much nor force yourself to finish learning on that one go without rest.

## Get yourself a leader or mentor.

![https://media.istockphoto.com/photos/engineer-showing-equipment-to-a-female-apprentice-close-up-picture-id862721458?b=1&k=20&m=862721458&s=170667a&w=0&h=raeXM4lfiNaWiayEgc55zss6VDlfa83U_K2tQpLFVMk=](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/yldfufdziin9p1v99scp.jpg)
- A [Mentor](https://dev.to/dorf8839/finding-your-first-mentor-5126)  is a huge part of your growth and the direction of your career.
- Its important to have someone to lead your growth, someone to help your through bug hell and grooming code standards.
- Mentor will help you make smart decisions in the long run, see the bigger picture, even getting better tasks/jobs some times.
- Only a mentor can know when you are working smart or hard and they can help you grow in an efficient and effective way within a small amount of time.
- Developers love helping other less skilled devs, well atleast most of them. lol

## Accepting fault & failure

![https://unsplash.com/photos/XWar9MbNGUY?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditShareLink netowrking](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/ku0a7dsld69tjcvd5ncw.jpg)
- An important personal trait in interns is ability to realize mistakes and also be responsible with them.
- This does not only make you easy to work with but also allows you to bounce back quick towards fixing that mistake and even avoid it in the future.
- Understand that as an intern, that you are expected to make mistakes. While this isn't a green light to mess up, it's important to know that interns are being groomed to grow from mistakes you make, challenges you face also the problems you solve.
- A good way to avoid trouble and mistakes is to ask questions as soon as you realize where you lack.

## Network with other Devs

![https://unsplash.com/photos/Y5bvRlcCx8k?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditShareLink](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/yxjabea81g1uj9n9kyxf.jpg)
 - One thing that works against beginner developers is lack of networking skills, so check out how [networking](https://dev.to/sonicrida/how-to-land-a-developer-job-in-2020-with-online-networking-48n5) can benefit you.
- Developer jobs and skills towards greener pastures can only be found through networking and buddy programming, reaching out to developers online or communities.
- We can count your mentor as your first dev you network with on a leader follower relationship, now you need peer to peer developer relationship.
- Talking with other devs can and will grow your communication and also make you have a pool of resources, it does in-fact allow you to be more confident and accessible since you have few connections to you.

Has networking with other Devs help you out, how??
Follow me on [VukaniNqubekoGcabashe](https://www.instagram.com/nqubekogcabashe/) for some fun code
Check my [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/nqubeko-gcabashe/)

Those are what i use to help my self ease my growth and also those i have discussed it with, and definitely it does make a huge impact on how things progress. Happy Interning!!

_thank you Javinpaul for the React Project List_
_thank you Cory Dorfner for the Mentor Advice_
_thank you Sonicrida for the networking Insight_