WIMTACH Student Profile: Sina Sarshar Pour

Sina Sarshar Pour’s path toward Software Engineering was brought on by a misunderstanding. Initially, he had hopes of learning about Blockchain Technology because of his interest in Cryptocurrency, and he’d assumed that the Artificial intelligence stream would enable him to also learn about Blockchain with a wider purview. As a result, he shifted his focus to enroll in the Software Engineering Technology Artificial Intelligence program at Centennial College. Although he wasn’t able to learn about Blockchain, his chosen path turned out to be a complementary accident, and he was able to learn about an internship opportunity at WIMTACH in one of his classes. Once he joined, he found WIMTACH to be advantageous almost immediately. “It was very nice, I really enjoyed how easy it was to join the team and be able to start actually working,” he said.

He was asked to assist the WIMTACH research team with the development of a cloud-based web application in partnership with Winters Instruments Ltd., a Canadian industrial Instrumentation manufacturer. The focus of the partnership was to develop an application that allows Winters Instrument customers to have a better user experience when navigating through their website inventory of product offerings. The project required him to learn C Sharp for Back-end development, a programming language that he had never used before. But he had an opportunity to job shadow other students to learn how to use the language and complete tasks for the project. Since programming in C Sharp was his primary focus as a student Back-end developer for several months, he developed a proficiency with the language.

Overtime, he was able to improve his programming skills and seek assistance from Centennial College faculty members who were involved in the project. “It gave us a direction,” he said. “That guidance was really helpful to help me be a better C Sharp developer.” Through his involvement with the Winters Instrument project, he was able to successfully build up his knowledge about how to develop a strong Back-end infrastructure, and he is so self-assured about his ability to program using C Sharp, he is readily able to use the language for any software development project. “At this moment, I would say I am confident to go in any environment in any workplace and be able to thrive,” he said. “The only place I learned about these skills was WIMTACH.”

In recognition of his aptitude for programming, Sina has also been asked to join the project development team for a WIMTACH project in partnership with Xello Inc. The project is centered on developing a student feed for the company’s internal Content Management System. With his involvement with various real-world projects like this, along with the benefits gained from the hands-on learning approach at WIMTACH, Sina has been able to really enhance his knowledge from school. “For a developer, it is important to be confident in their skills, so I am able to say that, which is very helpful,” he said.

Joining WIMTACH helped him to understand the foundations and elements needed for completing a successful development project. The internship has afforded him an understanding of how to deploy projects on a server and provided him insight into Front-end development with Angular. Additionally, he learned about how to use GitHub, how to use version control, how to review other people’s code, learn programming standards, and naming conventions. Among other skills, he also learned how to support and communicate with his team effectively. “There were a lot of things that I didn’t know before,” he said. His biggest takeaway has been his education in programming within a team environment. He reflects fondly on his collaborations with his team and often, the connections he’s made through teamwork are at the root of most of his memorable moments at WIMTACH. “All of it is good. I enjoy even the bugs that happen,” he said. “All the learning experiences is very nice.”

Adamant that his internship will be a stepping stone in building up his experience, Sina is confident that when he is ready for employment, he will have great job prospects. “It’s definitely useful in terms of learning how to do an actual project in a place that you have help,” he said. “Now that I am in WIMTACH and I learn these things, now I can go to an interview and be confident about it.”

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