Easier said then done

Easier said than done, doing an internship. If you are doing it my way, anyways. I was, and still am, on an adventure being an intern at Woedend, a Amsterdam based communication company. But what took it to come this far?The story of the not-so-average path one has to take to ensure the internship of a lifetime...

Not a real choicemaker

Picking roads and making decisions has always been quite an assignment for me. I’m always a little unspecific, on purpose.But some times in life the choice is not up to you to rather not make a choice. Internship is one of them. As much as I wanted to 'just do communication stuff', I had to choose.

I had to rethink some things.As always, I initiated the organization of my internship way past the now-is-a-good-time-to-start deadline. But that was not all. After I all figured it out, the one company where I had decided to go for, turned me down unexpectedly.I had to rethink some things. That, and the fact that it was a mere 1.5 weeks before the supposed start of the internship with no place to sleep that was a little closer to Amsterdam, made me decide it was best to focus on some other things and try again in September or so.

Turned out different.

Turned out a little differently. As I was planning my next few months 'on my own', I discovered that everything I wanted to do could also happen at Woedend, which already had said yes. One phone call was enough to start the most hectic week I had ever experienced: told my girlfriend, told my mentor, searched for rooms, traveled across the country, found a guy that could babysit my apartment, talked to many people, even paid to say I was looking for a room, got one, moved important stuff over there in a backpack, managed a bad and a desk from second hand stores and began my internship. Yes, it really went that fast.

There I was, trying to be an internSo it began. A mere 24 hours after I left hometown, here I was, sitting behind a desk at Woedend, trying to be an intern. A new environment, just moments after I paused my life here in Leeuwarden and started the double life in Amsterdam. The first few days were all about adjusting and setting up. They were kind to let me work on the platform I enjoy the most, Macintosh. I am the only one at development that works on a Mac. And I can tell ya, you kinda feel the minority then...

Unsure about my skills

If you think that is the only bit I was unsure about: this is only the tip of the iceberg. I was virtually unsure about every little bit. The fact is that I never did TNW here at CMD. All my webdevelopment skills came from self-schooling and an above average interest in programming. But I had to make a decision, about what to do as an intern, remember? I knew I had a history with web-development and it had my interest, so it was one of the things I thought would be appropriate to persue.

Whadayadoinʼ

what did I do, assignments, other tasks, lunch, analogy with alt.lønch, fun to do at first, later on routine and just accepted as part of the job.Woedend websiteAmstel 3e helftABN Amro nieuwsbrievenIntranetEveline Halprin portfolioIntermediair mailingMet dier meer mens restyleMariette Fehmers placeholderBackup tapes

the Amsterdam adaptation

Now all this requires quite some adaptation at first. The traveling, the long days, the busy streetlife of Amsterdam, the metro / tram. I still went most of the weekends back to Leeuwarden, if only for the mail to check and see my girlfriend.But as I became more familiar with the city and I came to know more people over there, I started to stay weekends over there. That was already as expected, by the way. I never hesitated to decide to stay, as long as there was something to stay there for. Parties, events, holidays, that sort of things.

using the power of the social web

During my internship I praised myself lucky with being born in the information age. What a blessing it is to be able to stay in touch with friends and loved ones through Skype, MSN and the good old cellphone. I knew I’d really miss all the friends over here to socialize with. Thanks to services as Twitter I could still follow most of the whereabouts of them and join in on what they were doing in the weekend. Besides that, I used the web also as my venting channel so to say. I tried to keep up video blogging as my means of communication to the outside world how I was doing. Although I sometimes failed to do it in a regular interval, I do believe I made quite some logs that give an idea.

A tough time fitting in ʻthe real worldʼHalf way, what did I learn already? Made some discoveries, had a tough time fitting in 'the real world'. Tried not to be brainwashed believing 'this is it, get used to it'.I also learned that my knowledge is actually not that bad. My intern coach actually said early on that he admired my power to adapt to a system I had never seen, learn it quickly and without that much help. He even mentioned to the ceo “Can’t we just hire this guy?”. I, of course, was quite flattered when I heard that.

time to move

Then, as I was just beginning to settle, I decided it was time to discover my housemates were not that pleasant to live with, so it was best to look for something else. It was the beginning all over again. In more or less the same timeframe I went looking for another place to sleep somewhere near Amsterdam. I ended up in Amstelveen, where I still am. Although this hasn't been a totally smooth ride either, It'll do just fine for the time it lasts.

learning to code in a fast paced environmentback to where we came for: learning how to code and behave in a fast paced environment at the same time. Somewhere in the first half I quickly put together a plan for my internship, which stated I would like an 'internship assignment', a sort of project that you work on during your internship. Something real, a prototype, 'this is where I all did it for' kind of stuff.

a unified portal for everyoneThat became an internal project, the intranet of Woedend. Place where everything is supposed to come together, a portal for everyone to find its way inside Woedend. Showing demo at the end of presentation, just wait a little bit longer.

social distraction every now and thenSo, I was working 8 hours a day, was in a strange city, in a strange house. Did I have some social interaction besides all that, or what? Well, yes, fortunately I did. Thanks to my earlier investments in contacts all over the country (networking so to say), I was able to actually have some social distraction every now and then. Much needed, of course. Although I had plenty of things to do after the long days, I didn't like the idea of sitting in my little room evening after evening.

I wasnʼt doing enough already"Doing other things than playing intern? Isn't that enough already?" you might say. True. But that didn't stop me :). No, the fact is that I put things in motion just before I realised I should go take the internship after all. As I didn't want to loose valuable projects, I decided to do those as well. That resulted in the beginning of Shift Happens, my own company, as a freelancer. It was a big step for me, but necessary for the things I am working on. It felt like a great adventure as well, and I seem to have an apetite for them ;).

aim: proof of concept app at end of internshipBack to the intranet. I am doing this project with other intern. Woedend has given us quite a bit of freedom to craft the system we see is appropriate. We aim for a proof of concept build of the application at the end of my internship, in about 3 weeks. What we want to show is our idea, our concept. Not a product ready to be used by end users. We figured that if we can demonstrate what we had in mind with the app with one so called "service", we will capture the motivation to continue this idea and work out more services to merge into the intranet.

the W! cultureWoedend is (and certainly was when founded) really one of a kind. It's name, it's size, it's location, it's website... All breathe a sense of informality you scare many businessmen with. The people that work at Woedend are serious, yet intense, informal yet highly professional, young yet incredibly wise... It is as close as you can get to that authentic "attic" feeling when at the same time doing projects for big names as ASICS, Kia, Amstel and Vodafone.

knowledge growthsvn, javascript, html/css, OOP PHP, complex databases, working with much more different disciplines at once, project management.

things I learned

Apart from some crucial programming skills and the dynamics of a real company, I also learned the things you can only discover when trying the real thing. Is development truly me? What is it like to work? As I expected, it is like a minor, only more is at stake and therefore the pressure is way higher. Although I don't mind to work, I'd like to do it my way. Being at the office all day is just not me. I like being freelanced, define my own hours, work where I want to work. Decide what to do and what not.

To sum it all upSo, to sum it all up, here's the recap. In 5 months time I:* Moved three times * started my own company * spent a total of 140 hours in public transport traveling from and to Amsterdam (that's nearly a week!) * met and connected with more people than you have fingers * thought it was time to buy a new laptop almost worth 2 years of college money * Worked another 85 hours as freelancer in the late hours * switched from Orange to nothing and finally to T-mobile with an iPhone as my mobile phone after being disappointed by a never arriving iPhone via Marktplaats * witnessed all the dynamics of Amsterdam with Queens day, festivals, tourist season and the 2dn world war memorial ceremony * oh, and I had an internship at Woedend for the extend of that period.

So, was it worth it, you might ask. Hell yes. Thank you.