What I do in my internship can be compared to school work in a small way. What I do every day is I document what the kids say they want to be when they grow up. I put all that information in an excel sheet, along with the information on the release sheet and the reflections the kids write at the end of the day. This is not really something I do at school, but I do work on a computer a lot at school and I work on a computer a lot here (but I have to say that working on a computer here is better). Like I written before, this internship might influence my direction of life by showing me if I can see myself working at the environment I’m working at here. What I can bring to internship from school is my work ethic. I’m confident enough to say that I’m a hard worker at school and I push myself, so I’m willing to bring that to my internship in any way possible. I really see myself working in a place like this in the future, so this internship is helping me in so many ways that include my education as well as my future.
I believe the lesson I'm bringing back to school from my internship is to always think ahead or take some time to think before starting a project. I learned this lesson because I’ve been working on a spreadsheet and put the information in a place that makes it harder to print out. I didn't take this into consideration when I was adding the information. Luckily, there was a way to fix it. When I come back to school, I'm going to work on thinking ahead on project so I don't have do extra unnecessary work because I wasn't thinking when I started the project. I also believe that when I come back to school, my communication skills are going to improve as well as my interactions with young kids and adults. This internship is also making me more responsible when it comes to work. I hope this internship will also give me more lessons to take back to school.
The biggest challenge I have faced during my internship happened today. Today, the class that came to the thinkabit lab was a class of refugees. The students were in grades 6-8 and spoke very little English. There was kids from Syria, Africa, France, Mexico and Vietnam. It was a really big challenge communicating with them, even giving them simple instructions like asking what career interests them was complicated. Since I'm fluent in Spanish, I was easily capable of communicating with the kids that were from Mexico, but there weren't that many. It did take the teachers a lot of patience and hard work, but at the end of the day it ended up being a really fun day. I really hope to have another class like them again. The students were awesome and very different from past classes. I really loved how they never gave up and always had a positive attitude, even when they couldn't understand a word the teacher or I were saying.
I was looking around Cindy's, Anastacio's and Danny's blog and it really surprised me of how creative their projects are. I mean, Danny gets $100 to build anything he wants and Anastacio gets to redo the Rap battle project. What stand out from their internships is how much freedom they have in their internship to work on their project. I think that's pretty amazing. I really wish them luck for the rest of internship and can't wait to see them again.
This internship has really increased my knowledge of what I want to be when I grow up. Working in a space like the thinkabit lab made me understand that I want to work in a place like that. Every day I'm always excited when I'm entering the building. I really understand know that I want to pursue a career that involves technology. Knowing this now will really help me make a decision when it comes to choosing a college. I'm really glad I'm taking this internship and love every second of it.
The project that my mentor gave me and Nathan is being the data analyst for their company. Basically what we do, is we document careers that the students want to become when they grow up, the reflections that the students write at the end of the day and the release forms that the teachers fill out in the beginning of the day. This helps out Erin (the senior manager) inform her superiors on how the lab is doing and what's working about it and tells her what job careers are the most popular for kids these days. Nathan and I documenting all of this every day on an excel sheet we made. Besides doing this, we also deciding that it would be fun to create something of our own, since we have the supplies. We’re thinking of building a remote control car from scratch. These two things are our project for this month.
Social interactions at our internships are mostly the same as if I were in school. I talk to Nathan most of the time, but I also socialize with the two other interns and spent a good majority of my time socializing with my mentor. We mostly discuss about my job as an intern or questions i’m having about my project. There is a good amount of socializing between co-workers, but it's mostly about work. The employees here really seem to get along with each other so It’s pretty awesome seeing them work together. There are cubicles that make each office space, but no employee looks isolated. Since there’s only 6 people working at the thinkabit lab, there really isn’t a problem with collaboration. It’s an amazing thing watching the flow of the class and how each staff member is so pump for each lesson they give.
I believe that the people that benefit the most from the Thinkabit lab are the kids that come. They benefit the most because they learn about jobs that they can take into account going into the future and they also learn about building a simple project that involves making a servo spin or making an led light flash. At the end of the day, the kids leave with a smile on their faces and with more knowledge about what they want to pursue as their career. We’re inspiring them to be the future of technology that will benefit all of us in the end.
Today I was fortunate enough to have a quick interview with Nicole Mahoobi. She works for Qualcomm as an IT Project Manager. She got her Bachelor's degree in California State University-Fullerton and later earned her Master’s degree at Southern New Hampshire University. She didn’t have enough time to go into details of what she does, but she gave us the basics. She says that she manages the many projects that Qualcomm gets. She says she mostly manages 3-8 projects at a time. She also told us how she has more than 10 years of experience leading the teams of software developers, project managers, and quality assurance teams. I was really glad to spend some time talking with her. She was really passionate about the work she does and seemed really happy to share it with me. She's a very busy woman, but I really hope to see her around again.
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Jose Reynoso-ZimmererI am doing my internship at the Thinkabit Lab at Qualcomm. Archives
February 2017
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