Meet Student Researcher: Visal Mohan

While entering the second semester into his studies, Visal Mohan was anxious to gain meaningful work experience in the technology field. He had high hopes of gaining a job that would complement his education in Centennial College’s Software Engineering program, so after a friend introduced him to WIMTACH, he was quick to apply and secure an internship opportunity. “I had some of my friends who worked in WIMTACH so from them, I understood that if you work in WIMTACH you would be able to gain a lot of experience, and it would be very helpful in your future career,” he said.

Now a Back-end Student Developer involved in The Reading Partnership project, Visal is helping a team of WIMTACH researchers to develop a responsive web application design for Android, iOS and Windows systems. The project aims to assist The Reading Partnership program with transitioning books onto an on-line platform to enable students to gain access to digitized learning resources from home. Visal has been able to learn a lot from working with the other students in his team, some of whom are also taking the same classes as him. “I like working on the team,” said Visal. “Working together is great fun. We have a great coordination, and it’s more comfortable working with them.” The cohesive and collaborative working environment has proved to be useful when he faces learning curbs throughout the project or while managing his school and internship work. “Since the work we are doing in WIMTACH is preparing us for a better tomorrow, it’s worth managing these two,” he said.

Working with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, Visal has been able to build his competence in Back-end development. Fortunately, he has also been provided the opportunity to enhance his knowledge of Front-end development, so on his own, he is learning about how to use Amazon Web Services and Python. He has a special preference for Front-end development and the ways in which it encourages creative expression. “When it comes to Front-end development, since as we code we can visualize what we have done, it’s more fun I think and it’s more interesting as well, but also challenging,” he said. “It’s fun and challenging, so I like Front-end development more.” Despite his interest, with the reality of a fall 2024 graduation around the corner, Visal is steadfast about acquiring the skills to make him marketable for future employment. Since he noted that a lot of employers are looking for Full-stack developers now, he decided to pivot his career path to make himself more employable. Now, he aspires to eventually using the skills he has acquired at WIMTACH to become a Full-Stack Developer, with a focus on cloud technologies. As a result, he is eager to be involved in more WIMTACH projects where he can work on Front-end development frameworks and integration skills. “WIMTACH is a great place,” he said. “We can connect with a lot of people with a lot of great skills, and we can learn from them and the projects are also very good and challenging, so we can learn a lot.”

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