My work experience week at Geolytix
Gagan Singh Virk joined us in October on a work experience placement from NewVic college. Here he details his week with us...
Geolytix approached my college with the aim of forming a partnership to offer work experience opportunities. I was the first, chosen as I’m doing a computer science course.
I made my way to the office on my first morning and met some of the team. I got stuck in straight away and got to edit a blog, with Kate McGoldrick, the company's communication officer. Kate also took me through the company's social media strategy. I then moved on to editing - Kate threw me in the deep end and I edited a video for Geolytix MAPP, after she showed me the basics of how to use the software. She also introduced me to the basics of Geolytix MAPP.
Tuesday was an earlier start and Sarah Hitchcock, the company’s Chief Operating Officer took me through a case study about Cook, and shared that as a company they help retailers to find a good place to set up their shops. They offer their own in-house software called Geolytix MAPP. MAPP can be used by these companies to see their catchments and where their target market is best located. The companies working with Geolytix pay to use the MAPP software and in return get access for unlimited users. They can unlock more functionality and modelling if they pay a little bit more.
Right after that Dennis Bauszus, the Geolytix web solutions engineer, talked to me about the fundamentals of the coding that forms the XYZ framework, the foundation of Geolytix MAPP.
On Wednesday I was with Oliver Hall, the company’s Data analyst / Developer who showed me the behind the scenes of MAPP explaining how the code functions. I was let loose and got to configure MAPP as I added layers to a client instance. I really enjoyed the coding of new catchments and I got to add a population barrier and assign specifically requested colours. He also explained what some of the functions did. The day ended with a Linkedin session - Sarah helped me make my Linkedin profile and explained what I can do with it and how I can sell myself to companies.
Thursday I had a Python course with Christoph Mulligann, who explained the different types of ways to use Python and how he uses it. I got to experiment with all the different Python functions. And later on I had a meeting with Robert Hurst, the developer responsible for all the deployments and testing, who explained new things to me about the framework; he first explained how to deploy new code and what the outcome was supposed to be. Rob let me experiment, the hands-on experience was great.
I just wanted to say thank you to the whole Geolytix team for making me feel welcomed, they were all super nice. Hopefully we see each other again and thank you for making this a fun and enjoyable experience. I will highly recommend Geolytix to future NewVic students.