How did we end up here?
Part of our training is an internship in an IT company. After an extensive search, we finally ended up at arocom. The opportunity to work on real projects in an experienced company with a diverse team of experts and to learn directly from them ultimately convinced us to choose arocom.
The first few days: arriving and getting started
Our first few days at arocom were very exciting. We were greeted warmly and welcomed by everyone in the team. Boris Willi, the in-house site builder, let us in on the secrets of Drupal. We quickly realized that this was the right place because we could apply our knowledge practically and learn a lot of new things first-hand.
Learning and growing: from novice to Drupal pro
Once we had internalized the basics, it was time to deepen our knowledge. We drew up skills profiles to identify our strengths and weaknesses and, based on this, received our individual learning plans for the duration of our internship. We worked on these either on our own or with the support of the team. The best part was seeing how our understanding of Drupal improvedday by day.
Our big challenge: Bringing the arocom website into English
Our main task was to make the arocom website available in English using the DeepL API. Sounds doable at first, right? However, we quickly realized that there were a few hurdles to overcome.
The first part of our task was to prepare the website for multilingualism, as it was not originally designed for this. This meant that we had to assign the correct language to all existing texts, fields, content and menu items in the database and in Drupal. To do this, it was necessary to set up and configure the translation modules used by Drupal correctly so that everything was translatable. This also meant that all entities already in the system had to be assigned the German language as the source.
The modules Translation Management Tool (TMGMT) and TMGMT DeepL Integration were then added and configured. We carried out the first tests for the automatic translation and made adjustments based on the results. After a lot of trial and error, we got closer and closer to our goal.
By using additional Drupal modules, some custom modules we created ourselves, a lot of patches and specially programmed update hooks, we finally reached our goal. In the end, the automatic translation was successful and the result can now be seen on the arocom website. Why not try it out for yourself by setting the language of this blog to English. In future, colleagues will be able to automatically translate new content into English at the touch of a button. And the best thing? Other languages are now child's play!
Our conclusion so far
Drupal can be really overwhelming at first, but it's also a powerful tool that has really impressed us. At arocom we not only learned a lot about technology, but also about effective working methods with tools like Git and PHPStorm. In addition, the friendly and helpful atmosphere in the team was great and we felt we were in good hands.
What's next for us?
We are now two thirds of the way through our internship and although it is a little sad that it is coming to an end, we are looking forward to the remaining time and learning opportunities that lie ahead. We would do it again at any time. And who knows where we'll end up after our training.
Final thoughts
Our internship at arocom has been a great and enriching experience so far. We would like to thank the entire team for being so welcoming and supportive. For anyone interested in Drupal and web development, we can only recommend an internship at arocom. Career changers are also very welcome, as they always bring new and diverse perspectives and a breath of fresh air to the team.
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