My Disney Internship: Month One

I won’t lie, I was nervous to start my internship at Disney. Why me? I’ve only been learning to code for a year, would I be able to produce and succeed in a company this large and successful? I had no idea what to expect, and I psyched myself out to the point where I wasn’t sure I’d show up for orientation. Thankfully, all my anxiety was lifted shortly after orientation began. Disney does a wonderful job of making their interns feel the magic. After a long day of being reminded of the history of Disney, the impact the company has on their guests, and the part I’ll get to play in creating the magic for others, I was more excited than nervous to meet my team and get to work.

I’m a native iOS developer. I started learning Swift and SwiftUI in June of last year, shortly after WWDC ‘23. My internship, however, is on a backend team. I was told which languages to expect to work in after I secured the position, and I had little to no experience at all in them. I wasn’t expected to, which was great, but as someone who deeply cares about doing good work this was not ideal. One of my quotes to live by is “Never disrespect someone’s belief in you.” I knew that Disney internships weren’t easy to earn. I had to remind myself that I was chosen because the interviewers genuinely believed I could do the job.

When I finally got to my first day, I received incredible news. The backend team had been assigned an iOS project, and they had no other iOS developers on the team. Not only would I get to spend my internship working on an iOS project, but it’s a project I get to own, help shape, and provide valued input on. I couldn’t even imagine a better situation for my growth and development. I was ecstatic until I found out that the project was written entirely in Objective-C and UIKit. I’d spent the past year avoiding both Objective-C and UIKit like they have cooties. I had never even seen a single line of Objective-C code and UIKit made me feel nauseated. Unwell. Unpleasant physical reactions.

Fear set in immediately and I went right back to worrying if I’d be able to succeed this summer. After yet another pep talk from my partner, I realized how much of a gift this opportunity was. Objective-C code is still prevalent in the industry, especially in more established codebases. Looking at job listings, many of them give bonus points for familiarity with Objective-C. I may not like it, but SwiftUI adoption isn’t yet at the point where I can have zero experience with UIKit and be competitive in this job market. Earning a paycheck to add this legacy language to my bag while being able to ask questions and learn from experienced developers on other teams is an absolute blessing.

Several weeks later, I’m genuinely appreciative of this incredible opportunity. I’ve been able to make my way around the codebase because reading Objective-C isn’t that much different from reading Swift. My team started me out with simple tasks and that’s helped me get comfortable with the basics like string manipulation, header and method files, pointers, and the many syntax differences coming from Swift. A resource that has been invaluable to me is Paul Hudson’s book Objective-C for Swift Developers. That’s not an affiliate link or anything like that. I don’t get paid to promote it. It’s been genuinely helpful to me and if you’re a Swift developer trying to learn Objective-C I think it’ll be helpful to you.

I thought I’d be miserable working with Objective-C, but as a good friend told me, this might be the most important project of my career. I get to learn a legacy language with the expectations (learn) and pressure (none) of an intern, and I don’t have to feel bad asking for questions because my team is, and I don’t want to be hyperbolic, the greatest, brightest, and most supportive team to ever grace this godforsaken planet. I’m having too much fun for this to be real life, learning and growing rapidly in this environment, and I can’t wait to keep going and see how this experience impacts the rest of my journey.