Reflection Essay

For my practicum I decided I wanted to do an internship that would help me advance my future career, so while looking for software engineering internships I found one being offered at Rocket Mortgage, and once I got the job I was really excited to be a part of it since it offered positions that sounded appealing and innovative. I wanted an internship where I could learn real-world experience since college doesn’t necessarily provide that.
For students who are deciding on what to do for their practicum, I definitely recommend looking for something that you’re passionate about and something that’ll help you define your skill set as well. This can be an internship, research, or even a project of your own choice! Once you’ve found it, reach out to the site supervisor or the hiring manager to get in contact and express your interest in why you want to join their establishment. Remember you don’t have to be perfect or have complete knowledge about the topic you're applying to, they know you want to explore and learn as well!
During my internship at Rocket, I worked on multiple projects. It was mostly focused on fixing and refining code and applications that were outdated or didn’t represent current technology. I worked on The guidebook and toolbox were websites many software engineers in Rocket Mortgage used. These websites gave engineers an instruction guide on how to use services or troubleshoot problems. Since my team was in charge of these websites I was given the task to fix internal and external links that were scattered throughout the website. After using software that scans for broken URLs there were almost 250 broken links. Another project I worked on was updating the pipeline for old PHP packages. Since these were old code packages I had to update their pipeline so that it could be a HAL application since Rocket uses Hal which is a web-based deployment platform. Furthermore updating these packages to contain other helpful software removed unnecessary complexities making it more efficient.
This experience made me look at science differently as well. Even though computer science is generally different compared to the other sciences it still taught me how to make theories or predictions on what I was doing. I would then execute it to see if I was right, and if I wasn’t it would be completely fine. I would learn from my mistakes and then create new predictions to fix errors since that’s the process of programming.
When completing projects, I was exposed to new coding languages and software applications which broadened my knowledge as a software engineer, which I wouldn’t have gotten a chance to learn in college. I also got a sense of how engineers work together and bounce ideas among each other when planning to develop new software or come up with effective solutions for errors. It made me appreciate all of their work and teamwork and made me realize that engineers all around the world use similar techniques to solve all sorts of problems. This internship solidified my career path toward computer science as a major and as a career. I realized I enjoyed working in software along with learning new technologies to implement code or other applications. This internship solidified my career path in which I definitely want to do software development or at least be a part of the process.
Working at Rocket Mortgage has been such a valuable experience all around and the lessons and memories will help me guide my future not only in my career but in life as well.