Throughout the summer, Skandalaris Center Summer Internship Program participants will be writing guest blog posts about their internship experience. Following is one such post. 

Working in a Real World

By Jeong Min Lim (EN ’20)

Hello,

My name is Jeong Min Lim, and I am a Junior studying computer science. This summer I am working for National Materials Supply Co., LLC, through the Skandalaris Center Summer Internship Program at Washington University in St. Louis. This is a great program that matches students and local startup businesses, where students can gain experience in a small company environment and businesses can make some breakthroughs on their projects over the summer.

National Materials Supply Co. LLC is a supplier and distributor of various products and services in the United States and abroad. We connect vendors with customers in both commercial and federal divisions. Right now, the company is expanding its venue to the E-Commerce world. Through the transition from a traditional brick and mortar store to an online shop we are excited to connect with the vast global market.

My task over the summer is to redesign the E-Commerce website and create a seamless, automated interface to manage orders. Currently, much of the process is handled manually, so I am expecting to improve productivity through automation.

I am looking forward to learning a lot about industry practices from this internship program. I switched my major from mechanical engineering two semesters ago and have learned only a year’s worth of programming language. Because I am new to this field, and the knowledge you learn in school is different from the actual practices in the business, I want to see how everything works in an actual business environment. In addition, although Wash U’s Computer Science courses are mostly project based, students seldom receive feedback on their works other than generic grading based on set rubrics. Unless your code is full of bad coding practices, most of the time “what matters is what works.” But in reality, there are a plethora of things to take into considerations during development such as security and resource management. This summer I hope to learn what an actual development process looks like and how to avoid any pitfalls of lazy development. All in all, this internship program will be an invaluable opportunity to review and further reinforce my programming skills.

Moreover, this is a great time to meet with talented people from different ventures with years of experiences. Because we are working with startups, we can connect with the actual owners of the company as well as the other members of the corporate environment. Each week’s venture panel would be a great opportunity to learn from their experiences and insights. Check out more from our weekly panel sessions!

Another great part of this internship is that we are located on Cherokee Street. This historic street is full of diverse culture and wonderful restaurants and bars, and I dare say it is better than the Loop. On the other side of the street is the famous haunted house Lemp Brewery.

Welcome to the Skandalaris Center summer internship program, and let’s make a wonderful, memorable summer.