Make The Connection

April 7, 2023 | By Cole Hatcher

STEM Scholar Showcase

Ohio Wesleyan Student Selected to Share Internship Experience at Ohio Statehouse Event

Nick Mankowski ’25

Name: Nick Mankowski ’25
Hometown: Canton, Ohio
Majors: Mathematics and Computer Science
Minor: Data Analytics
High School: Perry High School
OWU Connection Experience: Internship as a programmer analyst with the 3E company in North Canton, Ohio

Mankowski has been working with 3E since mid-July under the supervision of two of the company’s senior software engineers. 3E provides chemical, regulatory, and compliance information services to help its clients with compliance solutions to ensure safety and sustainability. 3E has offices in North America, Europe, and Asia, and is headquartered in California.

A Visit to the Statehouse

As a result of his internship, Mankowski has been selected by the Ohio Department of Education to present a poster about his work, “Building Data Validation Into 3E Notify,” at the 2023 Choose Ohio First (COF) Scholar Showcase on April 11 at the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus. He credits Danielle Bailey, Ph.D., OWU’s STEM Career Catalyst, with helping him to earn a spot in the competitive, application-based showcase.

For the six-month 3E Notify project, Mankowski worked to add “data validation to the new backend application programming interface (API) we were building at the time. … The 3E Notify application is a web app used to help companies stay chemically compliant by facilitating the ‘notification’ process to government agencies.”

My Responsibilities

“I spend my time working alongside an engineering team and have learned a lot … about applying object-oriented programming principles in practice, building components of web applications, and tying different pieces of a web application together.”

Lessons Learned

“I am learning how object-oriented programming is used in the real world. This is a concept I am currently learning in my CS270 class, and it is really cool to come at it from a sort of reversed perspective. While I have developed a decent understanding while working at this internship, learning the more formal details of this approach to programming while understanding the how and why it is done that way in the real world is fascinating.

“I am also learning valuable lessons about the administrative processes of software development. Learning about the way that teams and work are organized helps me to understand how to better segment the work I am doing in class, and will undoubtedly help me integrate into a software engineering team more quickly in the future.”

My Favorite Moments

“My favorite part of my internship has been learning more about different aspects of web development, especially connecting the back and front end of an application.”

Why I Chose Ohio Wesleyan

“I really liked the small class size and the opportunity to connect with your professors.”

My Plans After Graduation

“After graduation, I plan on either entering grad school for mathematics or entering the software engineering industry.”