🧑‍💻First internship as a dev? ⚠️Avoid these 5 common mistakes

1. Not asking questions

Mistake: Suffering in silence for hours.

Fix: Ask within 15 mins of being stuck.

“Quick question how does the auth flow work here?” Mentors respect curiosity, not mind-reading.

2. Going full lone wolf

Mistake: You disappear, then drop a surprise PR.

Fix:

• Say your plan in standup.
• Ask for a 10-min pair session.
• Share wins early: “Just got the API working! 🎯”

3. Ignoring the docs & repo

Mistake: Jumping into code blind.

Fix:

1. Read the README first.
2. Run git log oneline to see what’s hot.
3. Ask: “What’s the one file I should never touch?”

4. Messing up Git

Mistake: One mega-commit: “fixed everything.”

Fix:

• Commit small & often.
• Use branches: feature/login-btn.
• Write messages like tweets:
  

  feat: add dark mode toggle

5. Ghosting on updates

Mistake: Mentor has no clue what you’re doing.

Fix:

• End-of-day Slack:
  

  “Done: login UI ✅ | Blocked: CORS 😵 | Tomorrow: test with dev server”

• Short, clear, consistent.