Going in to final week of internship, still feeling weird [closed]

Question

Time flies. I previously posted something similar at workplace stackexchange.

Quick summary: In terms of academic/school's requirements needed to pass the internship, I have already completed all the reports and handed them in.

Throughout the year, they have been constantly asking me to develop new features. I try to test as much as I possibly can before writing more new features. I test whatever I develop from a user point of view (black box).

In the school's reports, which contain mine and my supervisor's signature, I did write down all the functional requirements. I am not sure if I wrote down the requirements in a vague/generalized manner. I prioritized developing new features over writing the report. BUT I am positive I never wrote down things that I never do in the report.

The coming week is my final week at the company. Up until today, I finally stop developing new features for the software system. The company now then start to 'seriously' test whatever that I have developed so far. They also test it from the user point of view (black box). They never ask me to do another other kind of testing, because of this the company found some bugs in my code. My superior says something along the line of: "there isn't a lot of time left to resolve the bugs."

I have been gradually writing down whatever useful information that can be passed on to whoever who enters the company. I wrote down all these information in PDF and such and upload them to the company's server and/or the version control system.

Is that how a software development internship 'works'?

Most important question: Am I still worrying too much ?

Answer 1

This is a tricky question to answer.

Internships are different at every shop. Some intern never code and just learn, while other are thrown to the wolves to fend for themselves. Every internship is different. Its good to remember that an internship is a two-way street in some cases. If the internship has the potential to spawn a contract, or position at the company, then they are trying to see if you fit the mould for that company. Likewise, you should be evaluating if you want to work there in the future.

Sometime, people view intern as free labour. This generally does not benefit anyone and no matter what you do you will not be kept because they will just hire another intern rather than paying you. So I can't really answer if this is how internships generally work, because I do not know the company you interned for.

I do however think you are over thinking this. Do your best and forget the rest. That's all you can really do. It sounds like you did that. Let the chips fall where they may and use this as a learning experience regarding if you really want to work for a company that treats interns in this fasion.

When my team acquires an intern there is an element of job shadowing, then we give the intern smaller tasks and proof of concept exercises. Only after they have completed that do we give them work. Even when they are assigned work, they have a direct resource paired with them to help them along the way.

Answer 2

Is that how a software development internship 'works'?

I believe what you're asking is whether the situation you encountered normal and whether you should have done something else. In the companies I worked at as an intern and as a full-time employee working with interns, what you describe is normal.

The coming week is my final week at the company. Up until today, I finally stop developing new features for the software system. The company now then start to 'seriously' test whatever that I have developed so far. They also test it from the user point of view (black box). They never ask me to do another other kind of testing, because of this, the company found some bugs in my code.

Again normal. Just because you completed development on a feature and your own testing, it doesn't mean it works for all test cases and in all environments. In my opinion, you should never just "trust" a developer's own testing. The feature typically needs to be tested manually by someone else, with automation and while integrated into the software system. For your own learning, I recommend understanding what the bugs are in your feature and how they found the issues to improve your own testing in future projects.

Ideally, your company would have started testing your feature earlier so you could fix the bugs found, but sometimes timelines just don't match up.