Today is our last day with our companies. Its hard to believe 4 weeks have passed already. We began our morning like any other. Meeting and greeting our Supervisors and starting our last day of work. I wonder will they miss us a little when were gone? I couldn't help but feel a little sad as I got the tram this morning only to realise this was the last time i would get this tram on the way to work. Although our time was brief with the company I was beginning to feel a part of the furniture in the office and will miss some of the friendly faces that greeted us every morning.
Todays agenda was mainly finishing off any work we had been given earlier in the week and getting our supervisor forms signed and filled out. We have all learned a great deal as a group and on an individual level also. I feel this experience will go a long way in preparing us for the future and whatever challenges lie in wait. Im looking forward to going home and seeing familiar faces again but I won't forget my time here and am thankful for everyone i met along the way. I have learned a lot personally about myself and i'm sure the rest of the group have also. I learned I can adapt to certain situations in work and I feel if put in certain situations with my future job I can emulate the same or even improve as this has given me the perfect platform to do so. Pozdrawiam!
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Today was our second last day working in Krakow. Everyone was slowly coming to terms with the fact we were only 4 days away from our flight back to Ireland. We were all surprised about how fast the last two weeks went. It feels like just yesterday we were moving apartment. Our days started out as usual with Caoimhe and Mark heading out early in the Morning to go in and do more work on the blog they created using Java Script, HTML and CSS. Andreas then head in to do some code testing . Gary then accompanied Chris and Ian to their place of Work so he could see what the place was like, met their boss and see what they have been up to the last few weeks. Liam then went in to find more potential clients for the company he worked with. After Lunch Gary then went to visit Andreas' work place to see what he worked on for the month.
We woke up earlier than usual this morning as our teacher Gary was coming over to our apartment before work to speak with us. When he got there he said he would join myself and Caoimhe to work that morning. We set off for work and when we arrived we introduced Gary to one of our bosses Matthew and they spoke about what the business was about. We then showed Gary what work we had been doing and spoke about the project we were given whilst over here. After we had gone over everything with Gary, he left to go to another students workplace. Caoimhe and I continued with our work for the day.
Gary visited Liams workplace next and upon arrival was greeted and introduced to the workers. They showed him the work Liam had been doing and told him about their company. Ian and Chris worked throughout the day searching for clients for the company and Andras did some coding using the language Python. Gary was to visit Ian, Chris and Andras placements on Thursday. From being here in a different country and working in an actual company I feel as if it has benefited me in many ways. For one living away from home was a new experience for me and I think it helped me develop my social skills along with taking on a lot of responsibility. Working in a company has helped me improve my IT skills and has given me more experience for my career in the future. I also learned about a new programming language that I had never done before. Luckily, every member of our GTI group are getting along very well...still, after all the time we spent together. Gary our tutor from GTI is due to arrive tonight, he is going to visit us tomorrow morning, before our works start.
This morning started as a nice day, walking in the city centre we could see that the cold weather was gone and people left their winter jackets at home. There seemed to be a large number of tourists around, also the fountains stared to work again. We are now very familiar with the buzz of this city, feeling quite at home in this more and more familiar place. It is nice to get lost in these streets and places, to get the most out of what time we still have here. It is possible to spot one of those old Polish- made little cars, called Polski Fiat, even though they can produce quite some smoke when in use... Today was the start of our last week in Krakow. Looking back, our time has gone very fast but we have learned a lot and we will be sad to leave. Many of us intend on returning sometime in the future. Our work started off similarly to other days, Ian, Chris and Andras have continued gathering potential clients for their companies. Liam was contacting clients for his company and then sending emails to the companies they had suggested. Mark and Caoimhe continued to create a blog for their company using javascript HTML and CSS.
In the evening we decided to go for a game of soccer in the park. While we were playing we were approached by a group of local students and were asked if we wanted to join their game. We agreed and played with them for over an hour. It was nice to be invited to play and we had a lot of fun. They were very friendly and asked if we were available to play next week but as we are leaving they will have to come to Ireland for a rematch. Salt Mines
So this was to be our third weekend in Krakow. Saturday came and it was time for our group to set out for the Wieliczka Salt Mins. We were all up at and ready at about 1:00pm ready to set off, we got time to relax in the apartment before we had to met our tour guide at 2:50. After meeting our guide he explained what the days events were going to be. A few stops later and a 20 minute drive we arrived at the front of the mine. We were then handed headphones and were introduced to the amazing Marrik, who will be taking us down into the mine. We have all heard of the amount of steps required to go down to the mine but as soon as we saw how far down it became quite daunting, but seeing all the sites of the mines made it worth every step. All the amazing sculptures that the miners did and learning about how Poland's history and wealth all revolved around the salt of these mines. We all quickly fell in love with our tour guide. He called out to huddle us all up: "See Krakow with Marrik" went through out the mines as we made our way to the huge cathedral carved out under ground by these miners. The sites of the salt mines were truly beautiful and and we all discussed them as we huddled into the small rickety elevator that will bring us to the top floor Auschwitz On Sunday it was a very early wake up as we all prepared to met our tour guide at 8:30 to start our trip to Auschwitz to learn about the horrors of the Holocaust during World War 2. We all met at the tourist centre and started our Journey. We arrived at Auschwitz at about 9:45 and got a bite to eat before heading into the camp. As soon as we steeped into the camp the whole atmosphere changed as an over whelming sense of sorrow took over everybody there . As we made our way through the camp we ere brought to most of the bunkers which have been converted into museums to show the horror that took place there, Hills of human hair, hundreds of thousands of shoes , even baby shoes. It was all overwhelming and some of the group shed tears for all the lives lost in this horrific event. After the tour of Auschwitz we were then brought by bus to the even bigger Auschwitz 2 , this camp was mainly used for the murders and was mostly demolished by the Germans to hide what they had done. This day will for ever be planted in our minds in hope that an event like the this will never happen again. We are nearly at the end of our third week in Krakow. Looking back the time we spent here, it seems like a short time, even though we have done a large amount of work at our workplaces. We get to know our co-workers better, and as time passes, they continue to be friendly and helpful. It is interesting to see how multicultural these companies are, people that are working here came from so many different parts of the world and work together so well.
On our first week here we heard that during the summer time, more than half of the population living in Krakow are foreigner visitors, not only natives. It seems to be easier to believe that now, just by walking on the streets, or travelling on trams. Speaking of which, it was easy to notice a nice feature on one of the newer trams, as they have USB charging outputs protected by plastic lids on board, so people can charge their phones and other devices while travelling. It is just nice option to have. Overall today was a great day. The sun has returned and although its not as nice as when we landed, its a nice change from the bitter cold and snow we had pretty much all this week. Its hard to believe its the end of our third working week here now, time has passed very quickly and we have all learned so much. Its been a great experience and its not finished yet.
We have a busy weekend lined up also with the Salt mines and Autschwitz so that will be interesting. Its been interesting from my perspective at least to see the inner workings of a company, although we have been given different tasks by our companies i'm sure we are all on the same page as regards learning about what make companies tick and the daily routines of office work. We have also gained a lot of experience collectively simple navigating through a city we have never been before. That in itself its a learning curve i think everyone here has come to gain a lot of confidence in and will surely stand to them in the future whatever their endeavours. Living in close proximity to a group of people is something i have had to adapt quickly to and something that was made a lot easier by the group of students that are here. We all get on well together and help each other out in any way we can. I also think this is something that will stand to us in the future as it resonates well with team work and leadership. So overall this has being a great experience and i'm looking forward to the weekend and of course our last week in Krakow. When we arrived at work we thought we would be testing the website the company is working on because a new release is every week. They said we could just work on our blog instead. When we are working on the blog we can ask our co-workers for help as well as the head of the office. It's nice to see that if we were working in this sort of environment how the people around you will help you no problem, regardless of your level of education. The open office is great because it feels like we are all a team even though we could all be doing completely separate jobs.
I would say everyone feels more comfortable in choosing this as a career path as we have seen what it is like to work in software development and how their daily live's are and how it isn't in a room on your own and working on one the project the whole time. Myself and Mark are getting a great taste for the job and a new programming language. It is hard but it's nice to learn something new and to see what else we could do in the future. This is great for us because we will have a good grounding on the basics of JavaScript and can now see how real life companies use it as opposed to textbook theories. Ian, Chris and Liam have started sending out emails to possible new investors for the companies. They are learning how to send a professional email and how to interest people just through an email. Learning how to write and structure a good email will stand to them because they could use it when applying yo jobs or for sending out CV's. Andras is also learning a new language which will stand to him for the same reasons as myself and Mark, for new job prospects. Also, if we ever wanted to do something on our own at least now we have developed the basic skills for these languages and we can continue to progress from here. Today, when myself and Mark set out to work in the morning and on the way it was snowing.....in April. When we got to work it turned into a blizzard, although it didn't stick. Today, we returned to work after the long easter weekend. We were all eager to get back to work and continue our routine. We woke up this morning to a change in the weather, it had shifted from being very mild and sunny to a dreary snowy morning. Although, it almost felt like home it was hard to accept that it was almost 20 degrees two days ago.
Today I arrived at work and spent the morning in a team meeting going over what work was done last week and what work was needed to be completed this week. My team leader then talked about the new clients they had got and what application they wanted made. Once the team meeting was over I went back to work researching possible future clients and then making contact with them through email. This will help me in the future to research for possible clients on a application I could be developing one day or I could be apart of a research team in a future company I could work in. Mark and Caoimhe started their day with the blog they had been assigned. They were helping each other out with java script and coming up with possible ideas for solutions.The project their company is working on at the moment did not update their website due to the bank holiday weekend. Ian and Chris continued researching possible future clients for their company.They continued contacting the company's by email.Andras was editing code that his employer had written for their current project,he also was categorising job titles that he then put into the code. |
Software Dev 2016-17Caoimhe Doyle Hynes Map of Krakow |