WIMTACH Student Profile: Hyunjong Shin

The end of 2021 marked a new beginning for many but it also marked the end of successful partnerships at WIMTACH which prospered with the contributions of Student Researchers from Centennial College.

One of those Student Researcher’s was Hyunjong Shin, who is now a new graduate from the Computer Engineering Technology program at Centennial College. For Hyunjong, his passion for software engineering started with a YouTube video that introduced him to the industry and to the inner workings of code. It changed everything for him and ultimately, it prompted him to shift gears from pursuing a career in International Trade towards a career as a developer. Once he had made the decision, he decided to apply for a development bootcamp to learn as much as he could. In the end, he participated in a Hackathon to test his skills and knowledge. The sum of his efforts earned him an award for excellence.  His success in that competition, instilled a confidence in his abilities. “Then I decided OK, then I am going to become a great software developer,” he said.

Joining WIMTACH and studying at Centennial College was a natural next step for a hungry Hyunjong who wanted to learn as much as possible. “I felt [the bootcamp] was not enough so I decided to study more,” he said. As a result, in the summer of 2020, he started his Student Researcher internship with a role as a Quality Assurance person on an EMR project. Eventually, he slowly began a transition into developer roles for mobile development projects. “I was very happy that I could start right away,” he said. Over the course of a yearlong internship, he built an expertise in front-end development through his work on various projects at WIMTACH, making sure to refine his development skills with each new project that he was involved in.

He contributed to a WIMTACH project collaboration with Interdev, which served as his first introduction to mobile development. “The mobile development is pretty fun and I also shared [a lot] with other developers,” he said. This project enabled Hyunjong to learn about the canons in the development industry such as insights into demo presentations. “That was a very unique experience for me. The students demo directly to customers and I’d never seen that [before],” he said. A major highlight of his experience at WIMTACH came from his final product demonstration in the Interdev project, when he realized that all his hard work was appreciated. He was content in knowing that in the end, his work was valued. “The customer was very satisfied with the project so in our final demonstration that was a great moment and I was really happy,” he said.

His successful contribution towards the Interdev project earned him a position as an angular web developer on a project collaboration with Xello Inc. This project enabled him to work alongside skilled developers from the Xello team and gain practical development skills along the way. The seamless communication among the team ensured that all the Student Researchers that were involved with the project, students like Hyunjong, were able to seek assistance at any given moment while completing a task. “This work environment is amazing,” he said.

The friendly learning environment at WIMTACH was one feature of Hyunjong’s internship that was most memorable. “Some [students] may not be knowledgeable in specific technologies and in my case, I wasn’t good at Angular in the beginning … but the environment is trying to help students as much as possible,” he said. He was struck by the patience and time afforded to students to really ensure that they are able to acquire hard skills and knowledge before they are asked to move on with another task. Reflecting on his internship, he remembers a team of people readily available to assist him for hours at a time whenever he faced a problem. “The company culture is very helpful,” he said.

WIMTACH encouraged Hyunjong to be creative and self-assured about his work while also enhancing his technical skills with tools like Angular, React, ASP.Net, as well as a familiarity with databases. More, Hyunjong explained that his participation in daily stand-ups helped him to improve his communication skills and it also taught him about how to prepare a production demo. “I learned about how to communicate with customers and the WIMTACH team,” he said.

Now, with the end of his work term at WIMTACH, he’s excited to start his new position as a Full Stack Developer for YuJa. In the future, he hopes to continue to challenge himself like he did at WIMTACH. “WIMTACH makes me feel confident,” he said

For more stories, please visit: https://wimtach.centennialcollege.ca/news/