WIMTACH Student Profile: Aryan Patel

Aryan Patel drew attention to his development skills when he joined the WIMTACH FundEvolve Hackathon in late 2022 and his team won. Patel’s team had the best concept for the Hackathon and resolved the challenges presented to them. The WIMTACH team became aware of his skills and when a position became available, he was invited to interview for a Student Researcher internship position at WIMTACH. He now assists a team of research developers in the development of an innovative social media application for an industry partner. Currently, he is helping to create an admin panel, and he is enjoying every moment. His favorite part about working on WIMTACH projects is his freedom to elect his own path and choose whether he wants to learn Back-end or Front-end development, or both.

Before joining WIMTACH, Patel was excited to get a practical development learning experience so, when he got the opportunity to take on a Back-end student developer role at WIMTACH, he jumped. “They trusted me and gave me this part … so this was my chance to show my skills,” he said.

A student in the Software Engineering Technology program at Centennial College, the combination of his studies at Centennial College and the hands-on learning approach at WIMTACH helped him to become quickly adept at both Front-end and Back-end development. Today, he is able to give a long list of technologies that he is comfortable using. “My resume is built so much from WIMTACH,” he said. “Most of the technology I’ve learned is from WIMTACH.”

Patel has gained a lot from this internship. For instance, his regular demo presentations to the WIMTACH team and an industry partner helped him improve his communication skills and gain a better understanding of how to interact with clients. These demos enabled him to share his work and gain feedback for further improvements. Working with an industry partner on a project that will eventually be accessible to the public has made his internship experience much more valuable to him. “It was really good for me to interact with the client so that … in the future if you get a client from another company, you can know how to approach them,” he said. His improved work ethic and professional presentation skills were a natural consequence of this environment. Faced with new technologies like React, Amazon Web Service (AWS) Neptune, and AWS S3 Cloud Object Storage, AWS DynamoDB, AWS Cloud formation, among others, Patel rose to the challenge to familiarize himself with new technologies. He found results in studying while robustly applying his knowledge. “It’s a good experience,” he said.

Patel finds his work as a Student Researcher rewarding, even when facing continuous software development challenges. He recently faced a difficult Back-end development error that helped him to observe how much he improved his skills. The goal was to integrate the Front-end and Back-end development for the project, but after a week of testing, his team could not find the source of an error. Following many failed attempts to resolve the issue, they finally had a breakthrough. “We were so happy,” he said. “These kind of moments [are moments] you will never forget for the rest of your life. If you didn’t get any errors, you will not learn. Coding is all about getting errors. The more you get errors, the more you learn.”

In five years, he hopes to be a project manager at an IT firm and eventually transition towards an entrepreneurial path. “I am still learning new things, so once I learn everything which I need to build a web company, then I will quit my job and shift to my own company,” he said. Expectedly, Patel is not concerned about finding employment after his graduation in April because of his exposure to a professional software development environment. “I am doing industrial work right now, so I think I am prepared for the outside market,” he said.

Pleased with his achievements, he urges other Centennial College student developers to join WIMTACH to gain similar advantages. “I think WIMTACH provides a great platform to learn,” he said. “This is the best experience you can get during your study time … every Centennial student should take advantage of it.”

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