Hi, my name is Laura Francis, and I'm currently finishing my final year at Karel de Grote Hogeschool in Application Development. I wouldn't say my internship started perfectly, but I think that's what makes it a real learning experience. It's completely normal that the start of an internship is nerve-wracking, especially when you have to work as a full-stack developer as well as a tester. But that nervousness quickly changed into excitement to learn more about testing and how everything works together in a real project.

To understand why, let me first tell you a bit more about what I actually worked on. We got the opportunity to contribute to an already existing application within the company called b.achieved.

Last year other interns had already laid the groundwork, and now it was our task to take it to a minimum viable product, something the team could actually start using. The project is all about visualizing the career paths of everyone at b.ignited, presenting it in a way that feels intriguing and motivating, making you want to learn more and achieve more.

Of course, building something like that doesn't happen alone. We worked in a team of six interns in total, my teammate and I on-site, alongside two other interns from KdG and two interns from HoGent working remotely from a different location in Ghent. That setup, combined with working in an Agile workflow, turned out to be one of the biggest learning curves of the whole internship. In the beginning, communication was a real challenge.

Not being in the same building makes it easy to drift into working in isolation, and we definitely felt that at first. But we kept pushing to improve, and over time we found our rhythm.

We set up a workflow where, as soon as someone finished writing code, someone else could jump straight into testing it, which pushed us to work less in isolation and more as an actual team.

That naturally brings me to testing itself, which was challenging in a completely different way. At school, testing always felt like a fun extra, something you did if you had time left.

But at b.ignited, a company that truly lives and breathes test automation, it became clear very quickly that testing is one of the most important parts of writing code. It is not an afterthought, it is a necessity.

The more I practiced, the more it started to click. The more tests I wrote, the better I understood not just how to test, but why it matters so much. That shift in mindset was probably the biggest thing I took away from this internship.

None of this would have been as smooth without the support of the people at b.ignited.

They were always available whenever we had questions, and I truly mean always. Even on a Sunday. But beyond just being available, they genuinely made us feel like our input mattered. If we had an idea or a suggestion, we could always bring it up and they would actually listen.

That kind of openness made a huge difference. What also helped was the fact that we all had lunch together every day. It sounds simple, but it changed everything. It made the whole team feel less like colleagues and more like friends, or even family.

And it wasn't just one or two people who made us feel welcome, it was everyone. That sense of belonging played a big role in helping us grow not just as developers, but as professionals.

Looking back, I truly believe I couldn't have chosen a better company for my internship. b.ignited is a place that is genuinely open to others and truly wants to help you grow.

I learned so much here, not just technical skills, but also how to carry myself in a professional environment. This is an experience I will never forget, not just because of the work, but because of the people and everything they gave me along the way.

And if there is one thing I want to pass on to future interns: don't be afraid to ask questions. Everyone at b.ignited is there to help you, and no question is ever too small. That openness is what made all the difference for me.