In terms of soft skills, one of the skills I have developed is being adaptable. I mentioned in my previous posts that the work culture at IMMA is much more laid back than the previous internships I had in the United States. This has challenged me and taught me how to be more comfortable with uncertainty. It has also taught me how to organize tasks for myself and advocate for myself. Another thing I previously struggled with was feeling comfortable with reaching out to my supervisor, Tricia, because she is remote most of the time. Over time, I’ve gotten more comfortable reaching out, which has strengthened my communication skills. On the opposite end, working in person and interacting with staff members part of different teams has helped me build my interpersonal and collaboration skills. Even just having casual conversations with coworkers has improved my growth as I am learning how to navigate a team environment and be a more active listener. In addition, I’ve strengthened my problem-solving skills by figuring out how to move forward in situations where I was given little guidance and instead encouraged to experiment with applications.
On the more technical side, in terms of hard skills, I’ve gained a lot of valuable hands-on experience with Shopify by designing and restructuring IMMA’s online store templates. I have been writing a lot of custom CSS to edit the styling of pages. For example, while editing the product collections, I noticed that the way the products were presented felt cluttered and difficult to browse. To improve clarity and visual appeal, I decided to make each product stand out more individually by adding a subtle border with soft shadows around each product card using CSS. I also decided to increase the spacing between items by adjusting the padding, which created a cleaner, more breathable layout overall. These decisions reflect not only front-end coding knowledge but also UX design thinking as I had to consider aspects such as how visual hierarchy, whitespace, and accessibility impact the browsing experience.
While I’ve been using a lot of CSS, I have also been writing custom JavaScript and Liquid code for these Shopify templates. Since I’m working with the free version of Shopify, I’ve been using JavaScript to manually implement features that aren’t available through built-in tools. For instance, I used my own code in Liquid to adjust the formatting of the footer so a contact form could be added. For the holiday-themed site, I’m currently working on modifying the theme’s code to add a winter background image across the entire site and on adjusting the color scheme to portray a festive seasonal aesthetic. This project in particular has helped me further develop my UX design skills by thinking critically about visual consistency, user engagement, and how color choices influence the overall mood and usability of the site. All of these tasks have allowed me to apply my existing front-end development skills while also learning new ones, specifically how to work with Liquid and navigate Shopify’s theme structure.
I have also learned how to use MetaCompliance, a company that specializes in security and compliance solutions. It is a great tool as it offers a platform that makes it easy to provide training to all the staff for various topics such as phishing, password safety, social engineering, internet security, and ransomware. I have been working with MetaCompliance to help build out and publish cybersecurity awareness campaigns, which has given me practical experience on how to navigate content within that platform. Another hard skill I have learned and practiced is UX evaluation, as I assessed digital tools like the Smartify app and proposed improvements for accessibility and user experience. This included proposing a prototype for a metadata-based filtering tool within the Smartify app, using JavaScript to enhance the app’s search functionality and user navigation.
Living and working in Ireland has expanded my cultural awareness and broadened my global perspective. I’ve gained a better understanding of different communication styles, particularly within a more informal professional environment. This has helped me adapt my expectations for my placement. For example, I noticed that although many colleagues take a hands-off approach, being proactive in asking for clarification and feedback is important for making meaningful progress. I’ve also learned to appreciate the attitudes toward decision-making here, as they give a lot of freedom for you to make your own choices. While it’s important to ask for feedback, it’s also important to be confident when people give you trust and freedom to complete a task.
