Software Development & Delivery Internship Program Seeks to Enhance UIC Student Experience
Supporting students with hands-on experience
Following a successful pilot internship program, Technology Solutions is building a framework to highlight the benefits of working with undergraduate and graduate students in a Full Software Development Life Cycle, leveraging their technical knowledge while working on real life projects that impact the UIC community.
In development, the new Software Development & Delivery (SDD) internship program is poised to offer students the opportunity to gain hands-on work experience beyond the classroom setting.
We are building a framework to help shine light on the value College of Engineering students bring to the table with their skillsets. So far, there has been great cross collaboration, and we would like to see more of that in the future.
| Director of Software Development & Delivery
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Assistant Director for Software Development Vishakha Patangay says the team seeks to works with students seeking to enhance their academic experience with project work, explaining that paid hires can expect to participate in meetings where solutions are discussed, then take on coding, and are also involved in testing, deployment, and post production support thereafter.
Working at a higher education institute where students are being taught to do this work is a great advantage and resource. We hire student developers who can contribute to real world projects, and add to their academic gains with work experience.
| Assistant Director for Software Development
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Students who successfully complete this internship will:
- Learn about the web development process, roles involved, and common tools and techniques used in the industry.
- Apply knowledge gained in the classroom to developing two different stack projects in local development environments. If time allows, we may onboard you onto some of our existing dev projects and begin assigning real-world tasks.
- Learn additional software skills to make you a more well-rounded developer.
- Identify strengths & weaknesses and set personal goals for individual professional development.
Software used in this internship:
- All interns: HTML, CSS, JS, Git, MS Teams & Outlook, Voiceover/NVDA/Orca
- LAMP stack: Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP
- MEVN stack: MySQL, Express, VueJS, Node
The SDD Internship Program is all about making sure our students are well rounded and prepared for roles they are interested in pursuing post graduation. There is a lot of potential for them to work on high impact projects.
| Technology Solutions Web Developer
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“During my tenure, I was part of a team that worked on several software development projects. My main responsibilities included writing code, conducting code reviews, and contributing to design and development discussions. This allowed me to put into practice what I had learned in my studies and to gain real-world experience in software development.
The SDD team was highly collaborative and I was fortunate to work with a group of experienced professionals who were passionate about their work. They provided guidance and mentorship, and I learned a lot from them. Additionally, I was able to learn about different software development methodologies and best practices, which have been invaluable for my future career.
In terms of personal benefits, this internship experience has been instrumental in helping me develop my technical skills and increasing my confidence as a software developer. It has also allowed me to network with professionals in the industry and has opened up new opportunities for me.
Overall, I would highly recommend it to others who are looking to gain hands-on experience in software development. The projects and tasks that I was involved in were challenging, but they allowed me to grow both professionally and personally.”
– Mayur Mule | Graduate Student Employee
This internship experience has been instrumental in helping me develop my technical skills and increasing my confidence as a software developer.
| Graduate Student Employee
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“I’ve been working with the team for over a year, and the type of work that I perform is usually implementing positive changes/features to the various UIC websites. This can range from regular bug/performance fixes, accessibility changes, or creating new components altogether for the UIC websites. There’s always work to be done on these sites and I’m glad that I have contributed to them.
As a Computer Science major, my experience working with this team has definitely helped me grow and learn more about my career path. From the tools we utilize and collaboration with fellow co-workers, I have gained more insight into the structure/workflow of the tech industry than my CS classes have provided.
Moreover, these skills that I have developed working here have benefited me in the classroom as well. This is by having pre-established experience with similar coding environments and tools that my professors use as well.
Overall, working with this team has had a very positive impact on my career and my learning at UIC.”
– Michael Jedziniak | Undergraduate Student Employee
My experience working with this team has definitely helped me grow and learn more about my career path.
| Undergraduate Student Employee