Jonathan Bissu

College: CUNY Queens College

Education Level:

Career Interest: Software Engineer

My name is Jonathan Bissu and I am a senior at Queens College set to graduate with a bachelors degree in computer science. I have an extensive background in software engineering and currently have aspirations of becoming a full-stack software engineer. My interests consist of web development, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. In my free time, I enjoy weightlifting, playing piano, painting, and cooking my favorite meals.

What was your role?

I developed a progress tracker which shows a user how they are doing in a challenge, and if they are on pace to complete the challenge. I also added comments and restructured the codebase so that it will be easier for other interns to understand the code. I contributed to the priority milestone div, which displays milestones by different priorities and enhances the general design of the website. I worked on the milestone filtering options, which filters milestones by a specific time frame, and implemented a milestone completion function which marks a milestone as complete if all dependencies were completed. I helped test, debug, and merge all of the milestone branches together into one branch. Lastly, I worked on SQL Stored procedures, which include resetting chores based on a specific time frame, setting challenges to complete based on the current date, and notifying users about when an incomplete milestone is approaching their due date.

What did you work on?

Progress tracker, Milestones, SQL Procedures

What was the impact of your project?

What did you learn or improve on from this internship or from your teammates?

I have learned how to work efficiently and focus on time management when working in a agile work environment. In addition, I developed various technical skills and shortcuts from the mentorship of my teammates. I learned to try every possible solution and never give up when approaching a problem. Lastly, I learned about project management and organizing work between teammates to make sure that everyone plays their role within the team.

What skills have you gained?

I have picked up various hard skills, such as HTML, CSS, JS/JQuery, and PHP. I have also learned about project management tools such as linear. I have developed a variety of soft skills, such as time management, leadership, teamwork, presentation skills, and problem-solving skills. I have picked up several software engineering skills, such as developing, testing, debugging, and deploying my work. My communication skills have greatly developed and I am much better at presenting technical information.

What was the biggest roadblock you've overcome?

The biggest roadblock I overcame was integrating the priority milestone div, since this was out first encounter with version control and working with code from other interns. Our objective was to use the existing code from the interface dev team, and integrate it into the "task view" section of the website. However, my team was confused about the functionality of the existing code, and did not fully understand how we could integrate that into the new div. We ended up declaring a roadblock, but we overcame that roadblock by reaching out to Robert, an intern on the interface dev team, who wrote the code that we were supposed to use. We ended up fully understanding the functionality of his code, and successfully integrated it into the "task view" section of the website, in turn getting rid of the roadblock and completing our ticket for the week.

How has company culture guided your work?

The company culture has been a great benefit to my workflow because of how healthy the work environment is, and how supportive the company is of fitting to our learning objectives and reaching our personal goals. Also, the values of efficient teamwork and quality deliverables helped me strive towards integrating outstanding work with my teammates.

What was your experience at Unadat?

What was one big project you worked on during the internship? Can you walk me through the process?

What advice would you give to future interns?

My piece of advice to the next crop of interns would be to speak with your teammates and work together when solving a problem. Always try your best and ask for help if you are feeling stuck. Lastly, take advantage of this opportunity and learn as much information as you can, since all of this information will be extremely essential as you progress through your career.