FIT Coding Challenge: Volunteers

After FIT Coding Challenge we wanted to know how it is to be a part of it, what happened behind the scenes and what actually FIT Coding Challenge is. We're bringing you an interview with two volunteers, Aida and Mehdija.

Can you introduce yourself?

Hello, we are Aida and Mehdija and we're 20-year-old students at „Džemal Bijedić“

University on Faculty of information technologies, major in Software engineering. We

started in 2020 and we were volunteers on this year's FIT Coding Challenge.

Can you briefly explain to us what FIT Coding Challenge is?

Fit Coding Challenge is basically a yearly competition in organisation of the Faculty of

information technology in Mostar. It's a competition for everyone who loves IT, students,

high schoolers, adults etc. There are several categories (challenges) in which you can

compete and some of them are: Coding, Game development, Cyber security, Innovation

etc. Part of the FIT CC is an event called „Job-fair“ where a lot of great IT

companies come with their managers and employees. They sponsor the whole event and

give students information about their internship programmes. With that, students can

easily leave their CVs and find great jobs in IT sector.

How/why did you decide to volunteer? Is this your first time to be a part of it?

This year was our first FIT CC and both of us applied for volunteering because we

wanted to do something more for the event. We wanted to help with the whole

organisation of the event because our faculty is hosting it so when we saw the notification

that the faculty is looking for volunteers for the event we just applied. Both of us saw the

amazing opportunity and great benefits which come with the event. In the end, we just

love helping and organising.

How do you think CC helped you in your future career? Have you acquired any new

skills, competencies, and knowledge?

Formally, FIT CC is basically IT competition for everyone. To us, FIT CC is something

far more. It's an amazing event which can help you with your career, improve your skills

and knowledge. We got in touch with several companies and were given amazing feedbacks so

that has given us these excellent opportunities for a lot of different internship

programmes which are vile for our future careers. There were also Q&A sessions with each company where students could ask whatever they wanted to know. We made a lot of friends and met such

amazing people during CC. And we for sure got all the promo materials which companies

brought with them to their stands on Job fair.

What were the difficulties you've faced, if any?

There were actually no difficulties before and during the event (besides cleaning after the

event finished, jk). Everything was amazing and everyone was super hyped and

motivated. Sponsors and our deen were blown away with how successful the event was and we even got certificates for participating. Professors were amazing mentors and they guided us through all of that so special thanks to our wonderful professors.

Do you have any advice for other students that (maybe) want to do the same?

We'll just say definitely go for it. It can improve your skills and give you the best of IT

world. Even if you don't want to volunteer like us, apply as contestants or just come as

visitors because you don't have anything to lose, furthermore you can only gain and

accomplish wonderful things.