Log 1 // 3-7-2019 // 5 hours
For my internship, I interned at a software company called Medallia. I was more or less an errand boy, but I also got the opportunity to learn about the structure of software development groups and also learned some coding concepts. When I first step foot into the building, my nerves were racing. I thought that I would accidentally say or do something that would make all these fancy tech folk know that I was in an environment in which I didn't belong. However, everyone was more or less doing their own thing.
Log 2 // 3-16-2019 // 4 hours
Today, I didn't go to the office. Because my mom's friends provided me with this internship, he said it would be fine if I just stopped by his place to get work done. For my daily assignment, I was given a sentence, and I was supposed to count how many times a certain word appeared in the sentence. When I asked why I was assigned this, he stated that it would serve as an introduction to the world of coding. At first, it seemed like a rather easy task, but it ended up taking me a couple hours to finish.
Log 3 // 3-17-2019 // 5 hours
Today, I'm back at the office and being the errand boy once again. To be honest, It's not the worst part of the internship. Being the errand boy entails taking food orders, delivering notes and mail, etc. I only do errands for about the first two hours of the internship then it's back to actual assignments and observing people work.
Log 4 // 3-22-2019 // 6 hours
As a part of my assignments, my supervisor gave me a book called "Automate the boring stuff with python". It's basically a beginners book for coding with python. As I read the first two chapters of book, I noticed that I knew most of the stuff from when Jon Pabico, one of my algebra teachers, assigned us a coding assignment. After the first two chapters, I became completely lost; I knew about absolutely none of the material. After reading the book for about 3 hours straight (more or less), I chatted up the employees there and the rest of the day was sort of a haze for some reason.
Closing Report
The main focus of my internship was being a personal assistant, therefore, the only skills that I had to utilize were my listening, communicating, and time management skills. The most important of these skills was time management. With the work site being in San Mateo I constantly had to time when I would leave home to go to my internship. I would meticulously plan out my bart rides and ubers to make sure I was at least 20 minutes early to the work site. Once I reached the work site, my tasks consisted of delivering and retrieving files for my supervisor and taking general notes on things such as how work teams interacted with each other and taking notes on this coding book my manager gave me, called “Automating the Boring Stuff with Python”. When it came to taking notes on the book my supervisor gave me, I was required to read a chapter and give a summary on it. My supervisor allowed me to choose a deadline and within that deadline, I was supposed to be able to summarize the chapter I read. Even though I had the freedom to decide on a deadline, I made sure to not make them too long as I didn't want to come off as lazy or incompetent. Luckily, the issue of time management wasn't too difficult as it wouldn't be any different from what I do at ACLC on a daily basis.
An important takeaway from my internship is the importance of basic skills such as time management, communication, and listening are. When thinking about what makes a business successful, what often comes to mind is having degrees from prestigious business schools, genius employees, maximizing profits, etc., but without the basic skills that were mentioned earlier, a business wouldn’t function to being with. I also feel very fortunate to have this as my internship as it could potentially serve as a job pathway. These type of experiences are often overlooked by many high school and even college students and graduates who think that a degree is the only thing you need to enter the workforce.
Honestly, there wasn’t anything particularly challenging with my internship. The only aspect that was challenging didn’t even have to do directly with the internship itself. The thing that was challenging was probably transportation to and from the work site. I live in Oakland and had to travel all the way to San Mateo. On average, the commute would take me about an hour and thirty minutes. During the weekends, I didn’t so much mind the commute time as I could leave in the morning and go to work in Alameda later in the evening. During the weekdays however, I would have to leave right after school which was around twelve thirty everyday. Whenever I interned during the weekdays, I’d have no energy to go to work or just couldn’t fit it into my schedule. Luckily, I only had to intern during the weekdays twice. Besides that, there wasn’t anything challenging.
Initially, I thought that my internship would be dull because it’s in an office space. However, I met tons of people that far from dull. Each person that I met had their own unique characteristic that added to the company. After this internship, I’ve learned that a job is only boring if you make it so. I would love to get involved in similar opportunities in the future.