2025

I am Logan Freeman, I am continuing my education by working towards a Bachelor of science in Information Technology. Previously my degree focused on the tracks of Software Application Development and Network Systems. Though, just this year the school of IT announced that the Software Dev. track will be turning into its own degree!

This past year has been a dynamic journey filled with growth, learning, and new challenges. My first co-op at Phillips Edison & Company introduced me to the corporate world, where I quickly integrated into my team and gained invaluable experience in IT Operations and Infrastructure. Simultaneously, I stated to working consistently part-time at a local computer shop, where I took on a side-project where I revamped the shop’s website to better represent its offerings. In the fall, I expanded my skill set even further by becoming a UC Honors Student Success Coach, mentoring students in goal-setting and academic planning. Seeing some of them secure co-ops we discussed was an incredibly fulfilling experience.

Following this, I started my second co-op at London Computer Systems (LCS) as a Software Developer, tackling a large-scale project to modernize the loading animations on a ticketing web app. Despite the complexities, I collaborated across teams and successfully developed an efficient solution. Now, as I move into the summer, I’m continuing my co-op at LCS while working on an ambitious Honors project to rebuild a business with a modern, industry-standard framework. This project challenges me to balance technical development with stakeholder collaboration, ensuring the site effectively represents the company’s offerings.

Getting Valuable Experience and Taking on Learning Opportunities

Co-op #1

In my last Year In Review, I began to describe my journey at my first Co-op at Phillips Edison & Company as an IT Operation and Infrastructure intern. This internship was my first experience working in a corporate company environment, and I was surprised by how included I felt within my team and as an associate. I felt as though I integrated very well within my team, and I was able to learn who to go to when I had an issue or question that I needed assistance with. This factor allowed me to remain comfortable in terms of trying new things and working to improve my skills.

Throughout my time at Phillips Edison & Company, I was able to pick up on a lot of useful information and processes that will certainly aid in my career. In the beginning of my internship, I shadowed my manager and the full time associate who works in effectively the same position as I was in. This allowed me to become more familiar with the tasks I would be working on and the processes that take place. As well as this, in I/O meetings I was able to pick up on the more in-depth information and inner-workings of the department and infrastructure.

Part-time Experience

All during this time I continued to pick up hours working at the small local computer shop. Every Saturday I was there ready to repair computers and learn new things. Working here has taught me many things, like how to interact with customers, apply innovative ideas, and think through complex issues. In fact, in the summer and into a little bit of the fall, I was given the opportunity to take on a very worthwhile side-project for the computer shop. I worked to re-develop the shop’s associated site, tristatewizards.com, and upgrade it from the previous one. The old site was getting to be a bit old, really showing its age for needing to represent a computer shop. I spent a lot of time developing the website to represent the shop's offerings. Since then, I have continued to work at the computer shop every weekend and have developed a lot of worthwhile skills which complement my current field. 

School and Coaching

Following this came my fall semester of classes. I found my classes to be very worthwhile in terms of my learning. A of the classes are Enterprise Application Development, Web Server Application Development, Business Writing, Network Security, and Senior Design Prep.

During the fall, I also participated as a UC Honors Student Success Coach for the school of IT. As a Student success coach, I conducted weekly one-on-one meetings with each student, focusing on goal setting, task management, and academic planning. By acting as a peer mentor, I helped them develop strategies for success not only in the current semester but also in their future academic endeavors. Working with these students thought the semester was a rewarding experience. It was fulfilling to use my experience to guide them at the beginning of their college journey. I have already heard from some of my students, some of whom have secured co-ops that we talked about during our meetings!

Co-op #2

After getting all of this experience both in my education and in the improvement of my personal skills I moved onto my next Co-op at London Computer Systems (LCS) as a Software Developer Co-op. During the Spring semester 2025, I took on a project which was considered to be a scale of an Epic in terms of development workload. This project as I described before was to replace the current loading spinner with more modern and updated loading shell "skeleton" animations through a whole production site. The site I worked on is qManage, which is a ticketing web app designed to organize customer service issues. The project seemed like it could use a simple implementation, though upon further investigation it was apparent that I would need to come up with an innovative way to consistently implement these changes throughout the whole site. As the project came to a close near the end of the spring semester, it was apparent that I was able to accomplish my goal. I developed a multitude of ways a developer can handle the implementation of these animations, through a default style implementation, and a granular method. 

This project turned out to be my primary objective during this co-op and it ended up being a more complex implementation than expected. Using the personal skills I had gained, I was able to work closely with those more experienced in order to confirm that my changes met proper development standards. As well as this, this project provided many learning opportunities where my colleagues were able to guide me along the development process. I worked with people on my team that were within my development pod and outside of it. I also worked closely with the quality assurance team to make sure that my changes did not affect areas that I was unaware of. Although I was the only developer on this project, I had to make sure I kept my branch up with the master release branch for the whole team. Despite the complexities, I was able to keep moving forward and make this project a success! 

Continued Growth

Going forward, I have a lot of opportunities for continued growth. I have been continued my co-op at LCS into the summer. The individual project I worked on required a significant amount of my time and bandwidth, limiting my ability to contribute to my pod’s team projects as much as I would have liked. This semester, I am determined to increase my contributions to my pod’s project work, specifically by taking on more challenging tickets. One major upcoming project is the complete rework and modernization of our site's Ticket Detail page. This page is a high-traffic section of the website that has undergone extensive planning to ensure a proper upgrade. My goal is to contribute meaningfully to this project, producing great results while deepening my technical expertise and learning as much as possible along the way.

During this time, I will also be working on an exciting honors project. I am working on a Self Designed Honors project to re-develop a business website from the ground up. I am making good use of industry-standard frameworks, most notably Angular. Previously, I developed a phone application for hands-on experience, but this project presents a different challenge, needing to collaborate with and meet the expectations of stakeholders. The website will replace the current site for MK Controls (mkcontrols.com), a company specializing in unique camera equipment. One of their flagship products is the Lightning Bug, which is a device designed to automatically trigger a camera when lightning is detected, enabling photographers to capture lightning strikes with precision. I want to present their products in a way that instills customer confidence. Planned upgrades and new features include a shopping cart, online purchasing, a gallery, a forum, a better contact form, and a modern, responsive design that balances a modern look but still with character. I have already made a lot of progress on the site so far, with the design of the site looking proper and consistent. I have been working with the stakeholders of the project to ensure my progress is following their expectations. 

This past year was pretty busy, I hope to keep up the momentum and further my career.