tldr: was just a first-year making todo apps when i found ITMZ. thought i was cooked for cs, but found myself in a place where learning and growth were celebrated, not judged. the team showed me what it means to be around people who actually want to see you win.

The Right Environment

Before ITMZ, I was just another student grinding through CS assignments. My biggest achievement was a todo list app and a basic web scraper. I had never worked with APIs or cloud services like AWS. Suddenly I found myself staring at terms like Amplify, Flutter, and FIGMA. The amount of time I spent just trying to set up my development environment was embarrassing. But looking back, that confusion was the start of something bigger.

Everything was new - pull requests, code reviews, and explaining my code to others. I probably set some kind of record for most merge conflicts in a day. But the team's patience was incredible. Instead of getting frustrated with my endless "how do I...?" questions and messy pull requests, they turned every mistake into a learning opportunity. I felt like a deadbeat to the team. But they showed me that being stuck on a problem doesn't equal failure. It's called "learning".

The Right People

What made ITMZ special wasn't just the work - it was the people. One day you're deep into learning how to make basic API calls with AWS, the next you're designing and trying to push out a new feature. The pace was relentless, but the team made it feel manageable. They showed me how to be comfortable with uncertainty and pivot quickly when needed.

I was terrified at first. Everyone seemed so experienced, and there I was, barely able to make a proper commit. But instead of judgment, I found support. They didn't just tell me what to do - they showed me how to think through problems. No more mindless copy-pasting from Stack Overflow/ChatGPT (lol broke my code too many times). Instead, I learned to understand the why behind every solution.

One of the biggest lessons? Documentation is your best friend. Before ITMZ, I was the king of copy-pasting code and pretending I knew what I was doing. But when you start breaking production code, you quickly learn that Stack Overflow solutions only get you so far. I spent countless hours reading through Flutter/dart docs, and aws api calls etc. At first, it felt like a waste of time - why read when you can just Google the solution? But diving deep into docs taught me how to actually understand the tools I was using, not just use them. It's like learning a language by reading books instead of just memorizing phrases.

The team at ITMZ created this unique environment where learning was celebrated. No corporate BS, no endless meetings about meetings. Just a bunch of people trying to build something cool. We'd watch others's demos, discuss decisions, and celebrate wins (and sometimes losses) together. It was sometimes intense, but it was genuine.

What really surprised me was how they valued my input from day one. Despite being the newest and least experienced member, my ideas were taken seriously during our daily standups. I wasn't just the "intern" - I was part of the team. Our Friday demo meetings became something I looked forward to, where everyone, including me, would show off what they built that week. It didn't matter if you were a 10x dev or a first-year student; if you had something to share, people were genuinely interested.

The biggest shift was learning how to ask for help. Before this, I'd spend hours stuck on a problem, too embarrassed to admit I didn't understand something. The team taught me that asking questions isn't a sign of weakness - it's how you grow. They showed me how to break down problems, how to communicate what I'm stuck on, and how to learn from others' expertise.

Despite all my rookie mistakes and the extra work I created for everyone, the team's support led to something meaningful. We built ITMZ, a platform tackling the massive problem of overconsumption. With 300 million tons of waste generated yearly in America alone, we created a cross-platform app helping people track and share their personal items instead of buying new ones. Our work even earned an honorable mention in Google's Gemini API Competition (watch the video).

The Reality Check

Getting asked to stay on for fall semester felt amazing. I was on top of the world... until I wasn't. The team was full of 10x devs who could ship features in their sleep, while I was still figuring out basic git commands. Trying to balance startup meetings with a full course load turned out to be more than I could handle. I started drifting away - missing deadlines, submitting half-finished work, and showing up to meetings unprepared. It wasn't great.

Looking back, I could have handled things differently. Better communication, smarter time management, maybe a lighter course load. But these mistakes taught me more about myself than any success could have. Sometimes you need to mess up to figure out how to do better.

The Impact

What I learned at ITMZ went beyond just coding. It was about finding the right environment and people who push you to grow. The technical skills were just a bonus - what really mattered was working alongside people who saw potential in others and genuinely wanted to help them succeed.

This experience changed how I approach learning and growth. I started feeling genuinely ambitious about my future in tech, building my own projects with newfound motivation, and actively seeking out people who pushed me to grow. The team at ITMZ was amazing.

Now, I'm about to lead my own team at Deman Esports, building an esports platform that will serve over 75,000 users. Looking back at that first-year student who barely knew how to use GITHUB, I'm incredibly grateful to the team at ITMZ who took a chance on me. They showed me what it means to be surrounded by the right people.