Adjusting to Angular: The Xello Collaboration

WIMTACH works closely with student researchers to provide them with experiential learning opportunities to put toward their future careers. With each WIMTACH collaboration, Centennial College students get a chance to apply the knowledge they have gained in their programs to a real-life project. They are also able to develop new abilities to enhance their skillset further. This occurred in a recent collaboration with Xello.

Xello is an organization that helps students from K-12 discover their career paths based on their courses, interests, and more. They began as Career Cruising and recently rebranded as Xello. Xello approached WIMTACH to help enhance their existing web application, which used AngularJS software. The purpose of the collaboration was to ensure that the application would not be affected by the AngularJS 2022 update, which would cause AngularJS’s support to be discontinued.

Student researchers working on the project – including Marcus Ho, Jarod Lavine, Benjamin Weymouth, Kunwoo Yoon, Asad Mahmood, Michael Asemota, and Subarna Bijaya Khadka – worked closely with Xello representatives and WIMTACH faculty to recode the existing web application from AngularJS into Angular 6. While some of the students worked with Angular software in their Centennial College programs, migrating from AngularJS to Angular 6 was a new experience for most of them. 

“Working on a migration project was something I have not experienced until now, so there was a lot of excitement to behold,” said Asad. He also shared his excitement about getting the opportunity to work in a team setting in a leadership role. “Being assigned the team lead position for this project has been an amazing responsibility…Being a team lead there are a lot of responsibilities, and initially I thought it would be very difficult, but as time has passed, I realize that I can handle more than anticipated,” he added.

Many of the other student researchers shared the same excitement as Asad. “It’s been a good experience. I’ve been taken out of my comfort zone by learning different technologies like Angular 2 and AngularJS. Also learning about different standards in which to follow and the reasoning behind those standards has been quite interesting,” said student researcher Michael Asemota. 

The students also enjoyed the opportunity to work in a team environment and learn new skills. “This project has taught me how to work in a pair, do unit testing, pull request reviews, manage my work in JIRA [and] migrating AngularJS to Angular 6,” shared Jarod Lavine. Subarna Bijaya Khadka shared a similar experience, saying, “the biggest skills I have developed from this project is reading and understanding completely unknown code. I improved my communication skill through daily stand-ups and weekly presentations.”

When asked about what the students most enjoyed about the project, Kunwoo Yoon shared his thoughts. “Every co-worker is supportive of each other and shares each other’s knowledge. Whenever someone has a problem, we have a meeting and try to solve the problem together. So I feel really strong teamwork and I do really enjoy working with them.” Benjamin Weymouth shared a similar feeling of camaraderie with the team, saying, “WIMTACH is an amazing place to work, and my team members foster an inclusive work environment. Everyone pitches in ideas when a problem is presented and it is a true learning experience at work.” 

When it comes to the students’ future careers, they feel that this experiential learning opportunity significantly pushed them forward. “This project will polish my resume and give me a lot of things to talk about in future interviews,” said Marcus Ho. Like Marcus, all the student researchers who worked on this project now feel confident and prepared for their future careers. 

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