Page 6 - EUREKA 2019_Neat

EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING

Computer Science
student Avery Vine

s someone who played piano since the age of five, term, whichever came first,” says Vine. “He offered me the
Avery Vine thought he would study music when chance to try my hand at iOS development as they knew
he went to university. But a Grade 10 computer that it was the stream I was in and I had expressed interest
A science course intrigued him and by Grade 12 he in it before. In addition, he presented the idea of working
had decided he was as passionate about programming as he out of their Needham, MA headquarters. I happily accepted
was about music. both offers, and in January 2019 I moved to Boston to work
Vine chose to attend Carleton University’s computer on consumer-facing features for the restaurants part of the
science program because of its mobile computing stream. TripAdvisor iOS app.”
“I already had a hunch that I wanted to develop iOS (Apple Learning how to write safe and readable code is important
operating system) apps,” says Vine. “The program gave to Vine and he was able to get a lot of experience doing
me a very solid understanding of data structures and that at TripAdvisor. “In an app that is used by thousands
algorithms, which are essential pieces of knowledge for any of people every day, “unsafe” code (i.e. code that is prone
programmer.” to errors or unexpected behaviour) can result in crashes,
In searching for a practical work placement, Vine used which are extremely frowned upon for a company this big,”
Carleton’s online co-op job board to find a posting at says Vine.” This was my favourite work term by far, and it
TripAdvisor. The company’s Ottawa office hired him for the really helped me confirm my choice to push my career path
summer in 2018 to work on its restaurants team. He gained towards iOS development.”
practical experience building software that allowed both When new features are completed or a bug is fixed, other
restaurant owners and restaurant management agencies developers are able to look at the code to try to spot issues
to purchase and manage ad campaigns for numerous or mistakes before the code is approved. Vine learned a
restaurants at a time, such as multiple Subway restaurants in lot from their commentary. “When I first started working
one city. at TripAdvisor, my [initial code was] full of comments from
“Towards the end of that co-op, my manager approached other developers pointing out issues,” says Vine. “Over
me to ask if I had any interest in continuing to work for the time—as I learned better practices and gained experience
restaurants team, either as a graduate or for my next co-op and intuition—those comments became less frequent, and

6 science.carleton.ca