Summer Internship Reflections
If I were to describe one anecdote that captures what it's like to intern at Courier Health, it would be this:
It was the end of our first week. We interns had hit the ground running, finished our first tickets, merged our first pull requests, presented demos for engineering, and, very importantly, figured out how to finagle the office coffee machine. As I packed up that Friday afternoon, my entire team decided it was necessary to cheer and clap as I left. The reason? Simply finishing my first week.
That was one of many examples of support, inclusion, and mentorship that persisted throughout my summer here. I interned on the Patient Services team, where I got to ship new features, collaborate with and learn from teammates, take ownership of an independent project, and, above all, learn constantly.
Much of my work this summer centered on redesigning the interactions experience—the interface for creating, editing, and viewing interactions, such as phone calls and messages. I rebuilt the phone widget, the component through which users dial and receive calls, and helped shape the new experience for other interaction types. I came into the internship with basic front-end experience, and doing front-end work in an unfamiliar codebase, while intimidating at first, was the best way to learn: by doing. Even as an intern, I was trusted to make my own well-researched decisions and ship code to production, which meant I got to make real contributions, as well as mistakes. Both pushed me to stretch into unfamiliar territory and iterate when things weren't right the first time. With support and feedback from the more experienced developers on my team, who were boundless in their wisdom and endlessly patient in answering my questions, I grew in both technical and non-technical ways.
Just as exciting was watching the Courier Health team itself grow. Startups evolve quickly, and Courier Health was no exception: in my three short months, we welcomed many new teammates, and I watched our engineering process become more structured, efficient, and organized in real time. As our product and code were constantly being evaluated and improved, so was the way we approached everything else. Through all of the changes, however, there were constants that grounded us: a warm company culture and a guiding mission to improve the patient experience.
We also had plenty of fun outside the office, including a Yankees game, rock climbing against the New York City skyline, and a Lego building night. Throughout the summer, we also had the opportunity to meet with each department at Courier Health and learn about the functions outside of engineering. Seeing how a mission-driven startup operates day to day, what each team is responsible for, and how the different parts make up one well-oiled machine was a valuable learning experience.
This summer taught me the parts of software engineering no classroom teaches: writing maintainable, high-quality code, of course, but also how to ask good questions, be product-minded, meet challenges head-on, and take initiative. These are the lessons no textbook could have given me, and they're what I'll carry forward into whatever comes next.
Tori Chou is a rising senior at Barnard College studying CS.