First, we want to introduce ourselves. We are Bram Terlouw, Bjorn Kooper and Nathaniel Cholinski from Windesheim Zwolle. We are in our third year and we had the opportunity to perform an assignment for CLEVR. All of us are studying Business IT & Management. This means we don’t have any experience with software engineering. We started our assignment on the 5th of September 2016.
This was the first time for the three of us, that we did an actual assignment for a real company. Our assignment was: create a prototype application with the Mendix platform for the healthcare sector. At first we were a bit nervous to work at CLEVR, but pretty soon we found out, that everyone was very open and approachable for the questions that we had.
The atmosphere within the company was very nice and open as well. Starting from nice, casual conversations in the coffee corner, to professional questions from the employees about our project. This was only one of the several occasions, where we spoke with the employees of CLEVR. We also went on a daytrip with CLEVR to Friesland, where we took part in various aquatic sports. There was also an opportunity to ride a Solex. This was the first time for one of us to ride a motorised bicycle.
Within the company they don’t really have a fixed workspace where you can work, but they do have several rooms where you can work. This way you often speak to different employees with different mindsets. Sometimes this is useful because you speak with a lot of different people, but every now and then it’s quite hard to find that specific employee, when you need them.
We started with a Mendix training course, followed by an exam. And achieved the Mendix Rapid Developer Certificate. After which we started building our application with the Mendix platform. We also had an extra training about the use of the Mendix styling with SASS provided by CLEVR. Along the way we had some complications with the Mendix platform, due to the fact that we were fairly new to the platform and Rapid App developing. The employees from CLEVR however, were very helpful and were eager to teach us about using the Mendix Platform.
Wouter van Dee was assigned to us as a coach to help us with this assignment. At the start and end of every sprint he came by, to see what we had done and what we had planned for the next sprint. Wouter really inspired us and provided a lot of feedback on programming, using the Mendix platform and the business related topics as well.
Now that this is over, we look back at a great 6 months at CLEVR. We learned a lot about Mendix, CLEVR itself and how to function within an actual company. We were also very excited about the amount of help that we received from the people of CLEVR. Everyone was very friendly and it was a pleasure to work for CLEVR. We hope that someday, we get the chance to return to CLEVR. A truly amazing experience!
