During this internship I have surprised myself in the fact that I haven't had to advocate for myself as much as I thought I would have had to. For the main and side work I haven't had to advocate at all. I think the reason being is because I'm able to figure out the tasks on my own. But that doesn't entirely mean that I haven't had to advocate for myself. The majority of my advocation I've had to do is in regards to my I.T. security privileges. One of the main hurdles I've been having is getting myself a loner computer and an internal email for my internship. This way I would be able to safely use the internet and contact my mentors and co-workers. Because I am a high school student (which is very rare here at my internship) the process of getting me these have been different than opposed to a normal employee/intern. With the help of my mentor, I have been able to get my lonar MacBook for the rest of my stay here. Once I got my MacBook I had a few glitches on my internal account. For example I was not able to change my password from the default password which is a very serious security risk due to almost every employee knowing that default password (because it’s everyone's first/default password). Another glitch was when I was not able to connect into my internships V.P.N (Virtual Private Network). This is fine if I’m on campus and using the internet connection because they already have countless sets of security measures and firewalls so my work isn't hacked or intercepted. But I do need to be on the V.P.N. when I am working on work from home due to my internet connection not having the proper security and firewall protection. So I advocated for myself to my IT representative and had her help me set up my V.P.N. connection so I can work from home safely.
Funny enough I did not know the “How to be an intern everyone remembers” document existed until reading this assignment. But I have been following these tips in the document because all of them and even more tips were taught to me on my first week of internship through a process that every new employee and intern goes through called ‘Onboarding’. Onboarding is a presentation of all the things you must know about my workplace including: security, badge use, tip on how to work with co-workers and work etiquette. So everything that the “How to be an intern everyone remembers” document lists I have been doing since day one because of this Onboarding. And for me it’s working out very well besides the part of writing down notes. Some people will be talking to fast for me to write down important information. What I do is ask them to repeat what they said and then I’m able to write down the important information. My main project for the rest of my time here at my internship is very important stuff. Trying to explain it without giving out too many sensitive details is going to be tricky.
What they are is prototype units that are going to be used in demos for companies who want fast internet speeds while using a V.P.N. (Virtual Private Network). A V.P.N. allows companies to hide their sensitive information while its traveling across the internet by traveling through private network (paths, highways, tunnels, however you want to call it). This make it harder for hackers to find it and intercept it. Even if they do somehow find it, the hardware I’m using encrypts the data before sending it out though the internet so the information will be impossible to read. What I am doing with this is reconfiguring the prototype hardware to be able to do this task so they can be shown to potential enterprise customers. The prototype hardware were used for a previous project and now all of them need to be reconfigured. There are around 14 of these prototypes that need to be converted. As of right now I have completed two of them and have tested them, which is the second part of my project. Setting up the demo itself for the potential customers will involve creating a clean looking UI (User interface). The UI will show the speed graph of how fast there internet speed is without the demo unit and a speed graph of the internet speed with the demo. This will show them that with ‘accelerator’ their internet speeds and bandwidth is greatly improved. The skills I am going to need to accomplish this is my experience with the Linux/unix operating system. More spicalfy the terminal command line. I used to do a lot of this back in my middle school days and being able to uses these skills again are pretty cool. Another skill I’m going to need to use is coding in Python. I’m not going into the details of what I might need to write. I will need support for this because my knowledge in Python is very limited. I will be working alongside a college intern who has much more experience than I do in Python so we will be working with him on this. Why did you want to work here?
I've known about this through the school and outreach. I like how their trying to support and outreach to communities. Do you consider this career satisfying? I do, I like working with creators and I like working with other people that enjoy the same type of engineering I do. Is there anything you wish you'd realized about the world of work when you were my age? Networking is key. Its a great way to develop new ideas with others. My first day at my internship was pretty exciting. The first thing I had to do was go over to building #1 to get my work badge. So the majority of the morning was getting that done. Once I got that I was able to head over to building #10 across the street where I my new work area is. With my new badge I am able to swipe it over the padlocks over locked doors to unlock them and I won’t have to go through security like I've had to do in the past.
My work area is the Innovation lab on the second floor. It is in a lot of ways similar to a makerspace lab at my school but has a few differences. What strikes me the most here is how new the tech and IOT (Internet of things) are. Everything here is very modern and probably around a decade more advanced than at my school. It’s pretty cool being able to work with all these items as part of my internship. What struck me the most about my co-workers is how supportive and easy going they are. They want things to get done but also make sure that every other factor is good. For example: They want to make sure that the person getting the task does not have other things to do at the time so they won’t get over stressed. If something doesn’t go the way we expected, nobody starts pointing fingers but starts working on a plain B. It’s nice knowing that going in which removes a lot of stress for me. For my job that I am doing is maintaining and organizing the lab. But what strikes me the most is that people from other departments will come in and ask me to do much more advanced work. Then when I'm done I will go back to the other work of the Innovation lab. I was having a conversation with my mentor and she explained that no matter what position you have in this company you will always get advanced work and light work. Everyone will get work that they can get done easy and other work that they will have difficulty with. I'm really excited because in the next week I will start to work on a few projects with college interns. I'm not sure exactly what we might work on but I might have a few ideas. That is also what I am concerned about. I am concerned that the work I will be starting next week will be too advanced for me and I will not be able to finish it properly. I walked into the side door of the building #10, even when I should have taken the front door. I get scanned in by another employee using their badge. I went up stairs past where I would be working for internship and into the roast house. There I got some coffee and snacks and made my way over to my work space to meet my mentor. There we discussed what I would be doing over the course of internship. First she told me what different types of software I would be using.
The software she wants me to know is: -Webex meetings -Screen sharing with Lync and other tools -Outlook meeting scheduling -Hipchat and Jabber -Wiki Then we discussed the potential main project and the side project that I and the other interns would be doing. For the main project I will most likely make a Rube Goldberg Machine that would spain across the different buildings thought the internet. It’s a ruff idea, not many details are set yet because the security division is giving us trouble. After that she told me the things that I would handle in the workspace to make it nicer like for example: -label internet of things (IOT) -make instructions for IOT -make video instructions for IOT -3D print for co-workers -clean up the ariea When I spent my time there I noticed what other workers stance on dress code and work hours. The times are very flexible where anyone can show very early in the morning or could come in later. Lunch seemed to be flexible as long as you made up any missed hours if needed. Dress code seemed very casual or relaxed business. |