When I joined college, I was keen to learn new technologies and wanted to enhance my skills. I discussed this with my seniors and arrived at the decision to learn web development. After two years of honing my skills in this domain, I wanted to gain some hands-on experience. So, once the fourth semester was over, I started searching for internships. Senior students at my institute advised me to register on Internshala for finding relevant internships. I followed the advice and explored the platform. After making my resume, I clicked on the ‘internships’ button and was blown away, seeing the plethora of internships it offered. I applied to many internships that interested me and was finally selected for a company named Greyy after 16 rejections.
Beginning of the Journey
The selection procedure at Greyy was quite simple. I had a telephonic interview with the founder Mr. Anant Mudra where he asked me which programming languages and frameworks. I went well with it because I was familiar with fundamentals related to web development. Then, he asked me if I had worked on WordPress. I replied in affirmative and told him about the WordPress website I had worked on for Manipal Marathon, an event in my college. After a few more questions like the differences between margin and padding and the methods to reduce page load time, I was given an assignment. They gave me the login access to their WordPress account and asked me to develop the frontend of the product page of the website. Later that day, I received a Skype call from them confirming my selection for the internship. This was a virtual internship during which I had to develop their website using WordPress and PHP over a time frame of six weeks.
Advent of My First Website
As a web development intern, my primary responsibility was to create the website and make it live, and so I prepared a plan. First, we prepared a temporary landing page which allowed users to subscribe to our newsletters. I began with the shopping cart setup and employed PayPal for all the transactions. I took care of the security of the website and handled the backend of the site in the cPanel account. I integrated the FedEx API on the website for the tracking of packages. In addition to this, I had to finalize the theme and customize it using PHP to improve the existing features and add new ones. A few weeks later, we went live with the website.
During this internship, I developed a better grasp of PHP and WordPress plugins. I learnt to use virtual hangtags and to integrate the Razorpay and FedEx APIs. Developing this site also introduced me to the nuances of UI and UX design and SEO, teaching me how important it was to take little things into consideration to pique a customer’s interest in your product. More importantly, I gained a deep insight into the functioning of an apparel business and got familiar with the production department. The team was also quite supportive and the flexible work timings assured my convenience. The internship was nothing short of a remarkable journey wherein I got ample opportunities to enhance my skills and prove my mettle. My joy knew no bounds when I received my internship completion certificate. As an intern, not only did I get familiar with the corporate environment but I also learnt to be a team player. I also got a chance to explore my abilities along with working on a real website.
About the Author: Sidharth Soni is a 3rd-year B.Tech. student from Manipal Institute of Technology. He shares meaningful insights from his internship which led him to create an e-commerce website in just a few weeks.
