What does it take to do your co-op at one of Vancouver's largest digital agencies? Just ask one of our three new, fantastic co-op students.
Valeriya Korotchenko, Software Developer Co-op
Valeriya Korotchenko is a third year, Physics and Computer Science student from the University of British Columbia (UBC). As a member of the UBC Orbit Club, her and 35 other students are in the process of building a small satellite that will be used to detect forest fires. Valeriya's contribution to the project is to write algorithms that are used by the satellite to detect smoke. (Our developers were pretty impressed in the interview).
While our work at OpenRoad doesn’t necessarily involve space or fire, Valeriya says this project sharpened her research skills and helped her learn different languages and frameworks that can be applied to areas of software development. This will come in handy as she assists the developers on projects for big clients over the next four months.
Carmen Zhuang, QA Software Engineer Co-op
Carmen Zhuang is completing her first co-op term with ThoughtFarmer as a QA Software Engineer. She is in the second year of her Computer Science degree at Simon Fraser University (SFU). Last semester she worked on a team to develop a web application to manage clubs and club activities at SFU. The part she enjoyed most was testing the application.
Naturally this was a perfect fit for ThoughtFarmer, as she will assist the software engineers ensuring product quality. Carmen said, “I am excited to be spending my first work term with a group of hard working people. Regression testing and the general process behind product development are two things I am really looking forward to exploring throughout my time here.”
Charles Shin, Software Developer Co-op
Last, but certainly not least, Charles Shin also joins OpenRoad from SFU, completing the fourth year of his Computer Science degree. A past course project he worked on that cemented his enthusiasm for development was a website called SFU Swap. He describes it as a hybrid between Craigslist and eBay, where students can search for and auction off items to the highest bidder.
The language and frameworks used in developing and implementing SFU Swap will translate nicely into his work over the next four months, particularly a cool open-source distributed content management system.
Welcome, everyone!