Monday: I had the company soccer league after work. Tuesday: The team went out for lunch. It was a good time, and we got to talk about work, and non-work subjects. Wednesday: I took over WayUp’s Snapchat in order to document a day in the life of an intern. Thursday: There was a makeup game after work for the company soccer league. Friday: Undertaking the largest project I’ve worked on yet.
This week has been a bit busy for me, but in my opinion it is better than being bored. I am closing in on my final month as an intern, and I’m evaluating my goals, and achievements here. I’m glad I’ve kept good records.
What I did
This week marked the largest project I have worked on yet. I am in charge of completely rewriting a test, and converting some functions to a new management interface. I’ve had to make a few design choices, and code with small goals to keep everything organized.
TIL
7/17/2017
Initiative is recognized. I decided to document my experiences during this internship for my own benefit, and hopefully for others too. The work I have done to document and share was recognized during a meeting today. I am now going to officially takeover the WayUp snapchat for the duration of Wednesday. I am quite excited to document the “day in the life” of an intern.
7/18/2017
GDB has the ability to set the value of variables during run time. This is pretty useful for debugging, and for replicating complex system states, without hardcoding values.
7/19/2017
Today was the day I took over WayUp’s snapchat. During this whirlwind of a day, I asked two other interns for professional networking tips, during an intern social event. I met Luca, a mechanical engineering intern, his tip was to always keep eye contact when talking to others. William was an intern I met on the first day, and my first cubicle was next to his aunt. His tip was to always follow up on connections you make, even if it is just a Linkedin message.
I did not put my own tip on Snapchat, but my advice is to find something in common with any stranger you meet. Most people will have a similar interests as you. The quicker you find a shared talking point the better. A conversation is always more engaging when all participants enjoy the topic of conversation. If you are having trouble finding a common interest, bite the bullet, and ask about something they know about. The worst that can happen is you learn something new.
7/20/2017
Setting goals is a good way to get more out of your internship. At lunch I was speaking with my mentor about my internship in general. One of the biggest things I took out of the conversation was to set goals for what I wanted to learn. Afterwards, meet with a team member to discuss how I was doing in my role, and to look over the progress on my goals, and how I could improve.
My biggest goal coming into the internship, was that I wanted to determine what kind of computer scientist I wanted to be. I wanted to learn about what industries interested me, and what I would ultimately do with my degree going forward. I have not answered my question completely, but so far I have absolutely determined that I am glad I did not go into cyber security.
7/21/2017
Testing in small increments can sometimes be helpful. Unfortunately I wrote a bunch of code for my user story, and now I have to investigate errors. If I had made changes in the first, I could have had less suspect code during investigation. The extra time taken to do more test would have been worth it too, as running a few small tests is faster than many full scale tests, followed by debugging sessions.
Personal
This week hasn’t left much time for personal business, but this coming weekend I will be seeing Postmodern Jukebox, and Straight No Chaser live. I will be going with Kim, and we will stop by the aquarium too. Hopefully it’ll be a good day out in Boston. I’ve also been talking more with some high school friends, and we’ve been playing video games together again. It’s always a fun time.