Ethan Tam

College: Hunter College

Education Level: Graduated - BA

Career Interest: Cybersecurity

Hey! I’m Ethan and I am from New York City and graduated from Hunter College in 2022. My major was in Computer Science but I hope to enter the Cybersecurity field as I've started to have an invested interest in that field ever since the recent courses I've taken for Cybersecurity, including the ones at CodePath. I'm looking forward to help others Some of my hobbies include video games and learning! My favorite video games include many MMOs like Runescape and Maplestory! Gaming is a big part of my hobby because of the vast nature of video games. There's an endless supply of entertaining and intriguing games to play that the hobby is limitless. As for learning, I am hoping to get more into understanding OSINT more and overall just expanding my knowledge within cybersecurity. I have an invested interest in cybersecurity because I value my cybersecurity and privacy, as you should too!

What was your role?

I helped work on the goals and checklist and assisted my fellow team members on working on a goal checklist, as well as formatting and front end.

What did you work on?

What was the impact of your project?

I think our project will help to serve as part of an even greater and stronger product that future interns can utilize. It also serves as the skeleton to be built upon or modified to the standards that Unadat chooses to implement. It is also documented with how functionality works and how it is implemented so modifying should not be challenging and will be relatively simple to do. It does not implement backend but once it does, it will look quite strong as a project overall. The current state of the project, I believe, can serve as a draft of the future implementation of the project, even if the vision will change.

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

Just because a task is daunting, does not mean it’s impossible to complete. Nor does it mean we are alone at the task. We have help should we need it, and we will ask appropriately if we need to. I also learned how critical communication and teamwork is. Without some form of coordination and effective communication, it’d be very difficult to complete or work towards any project.

What skills have you gained?

I learned a lot about how a Software Engineer would help build a product. I gained a lot of knowledge regarding coordinating with teammates, as well as how to utilize a tool like Agile for project management purposes.

What was the biggest roadblock you've overcome?

The biggest hurdle by far was coordinating with my teammates on how to best approach the project. There were many underlying issues that came with this problem. For example, the team and I were not very experienced in the php formatting. Some knew very little about javascript, html, and css. We essentially had to quickly breeze through onboarding and help each other along the way as well. Our lack of experience, in addition to our expedited onboarding meant that we were multitasking to a point where we were facing a lot more struggles than we anticipated in the beginning.

How has company culture guided your work?

It has been a really interesting learning experience. The company culture was undoubtedly very interesting to me. The fact that criticism is openly welcomed, and encouraged helped me feel much more at ease with my thought process. I really like the idea of being able to be open about the situation.

What was your experience at Unadat?

I learned a lot at Unadat. Onboarding was really fast. It was awesome to meet the team and the rest of the interns at Unadat. I learned a lot also from Sean and Daniel over at Unadat. It was an interesting experience especially because I had no idea what to expect. It was my first internship ever and I was really glad that Unadat had offered to allow us to be apart of their culture. I learned a lot about how smaller companies usually worked together, and how seamless it can be. Overall, it was a good internship that taught me a lot.

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

I worked on the Goals Checklist which would provide the user flexibility on modifying their sub goals in milestones. It would also allow them to check off ones they complete, and ones that they want to add/remove at their own choosing. We had to discuss several times how we would approach the process, and we are grateful to have been assisted by a UI/UX designer that provided us with insight on the design. Afterwards, we would discuss our progress, list roadblocks that we would try to get resolved ASAP and to also discuss plans moving forward as well.

What advice would you give to future interns?

It’s perfectly fine to feel anxious about learning a new codebase. It will feel daunting no doubt, but do not be afraid to ask questions or to ask for help. The worst thing you can do is stay silent. Your team is relying on you as much as you are relying on them so be sure to speak up! Do not be afraid to ask for help from Daniel as well. He knows a lot and can direct you to a solution or maybe even guide/orient you to the right direction!