I have two weeks remaining and next week I will be presenting my summer project to my fellow interns, managers, and URBN executives. I love learning hands-on, so this blog post is a great opportunity for me to reflect, share some new knowledge, and a few skills I have learned.
The Command Line
The first skill that I am proud to have learned this summer has been using Git on the command line.
Before this internship, I used Terminal in a few classes throughout the iSchool. But I never went beyond the basics of pushing commits to a repository on GitHub. Also, during my internship last summer, I used Bitbucket and IntelliJ which both have graphical user interfaces (GUI) which allowed me to check out a new branch and push code at the press of a button.
This summer I have been getting more use out of Terminal. I have been writing commands that allow me to checkout branches, push code, and resolve merge conflicts.
While working on my project, I had many branches open and sometimes would jump back and forth between branches. Having multiple branches open taught me all about branch management and organization.
When multitasking, it is easy to accidentally make a commit or push on a branch that is meant for another. Therefore, it is important to make multiple commits while working which helps to keep branches separate and organized.
Being resourceful and self-reliant
Throughout this internship, I have run into some errors in my code. The steps that I followed to find solutions taught me how to be resourceful.
Whether I am looking through our e-commerce sites for inspiration or in my project’s code base for similar concepts, I have become more intuitive and confident while searching through resources for the right solution.
Job shadowing and learning about SEO
In the past week, I shadowed a few people on other teams within my department. A friend of mine is the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Intern, so she introduced me to her manager who taught me about this topic.
I learned about the ranking factors that Google uses to access websites and then orders the search results based on the site’s score. There are hundreds of factors that Google uses to rank websites; a few from the top ten are site security, mobile-friendly, page speed, and content quality.
Attending a Company Launch
I also attended a presentation on Nuuly, which is a new company that URBN is launching on Tuesday, July 30th. For $88 a month you can choose to rent six items of clothing from several iconic brands and URBN’s own Anthropologie, Free People, and Urban Outfitters.
At the presentation, the president, David Hayne and the Director of Marketing & Customer Success, Kim Gallagher spoke to a group of interns about their backgrounds and taught us all things Nuuly.
Next week I will be shadowing a developer on URBN’s mobile development team and some members of Nuuly’s marketing team. I am honestly just trying to soak up as much as I can before my internship at URBN comes to an end.
by Nancy Hart
