I’m a month and a half into my summer internship doing QA (Quality Assurance) for AMD in Austin and I have already learned several big things (and confirmed others) that should serve me quite well for some time to come…
- I hate commuting! - What better way to feel like a mouse in the exercise wheel than to spend an hour+ everyday doing the same stop and go shuffle with thousands of other people? To expand on that a little more: In the last several years, going to school and work for me has never involved driving more than 3-4 miles each way, at most, and with my current internship, I’m doing about 17 miles through the heart of the city.
- I enjoy working with people - A great deal of the time I spend in my job is doing head-down engineering/testing; I spend a great deal of my day just sitting in my cube running through tests and identifying bugs. I do not spend much time interacting with other people or working collaboratively, which is something that I need more than I would have suspected in the past.
- Cubicles are not interesting - But you knew that already, didn’t you? And just to make sure that they stay this way, the powers-that-be have stated that “Changing the look of your cube also affects the consistency and professionalism of the cube area and can negatively affect sound management.” Which basically means that I can’t do this.
- I’m not made for this sort of work - Most jobs can be classified into two categories (pardon the computer engineer-speak) interrupt-driven and non-interrupt-driven; interrupt-driven means that the workload is driven by external forces on a task-basis (”Hey, I need you to test this product” or “Welcome to McDonald’s, how can I help you?” where the tasks are very similar day-to-day) as opposed to being driven at a macro-level (”Build a tool or program that will do this” or “I need a design for a skyscraper, do it!” where each project will vary and will have multiple milestones). The work I am doing at present, is driven by other teams, and we don’t get to see the big picture - just the micro one, something that I have a hard time dealing with. I can’t handle a grind like that, I need to be working towards an end - not flipping hamburgers as each customer comes in.
All of these things are going to be filed away in my mind as I continue to keep my ear to the ground for future job opportunities, hopefully I’ll find the right job.
Comments 3
How life just sucks when you hit that point of having some type of job with a commute. I don’t think our generation can handle the commute or people we are all just mutated that way from our parents and a society that’s made us this way.
Posted 26 Jun 2008 at 11:05 am ¶You hit on a good point about learning what you don’t want to do, internships are a phenomenal way to discover that. I switched majors after finishing a 6 month internship. I wrote a post on what I learned from my internship if you want a hind sight view http://tinyurl.com/4pwzuf.
Posted 29 Jun 2008 at 4:43 am ¶Hi David, I just added you on Twitter (FBendHouston). You can follow me there or at my main one (aeroG) if you like.
It sounds like you’re gaining a lot from your internship, even if you don’t particularly enjoy it. I’d agree about work types and needing to see the big picture. Sadly, it’s hard to find a job like that now that things are so complex, at least at a big company.
Regarding types of work, I interned at NASA JSC when I was in school. The first summer I really loved, I was in an office environment, we had a lot of interaction, there were many meetings and tutorials I could sit in on, etc.
Nevertheless, I really wanted to get the experience of working in a lab, so I asked to be placed there the next summer. Some parts of it were quite interesting, mainly because I latched onto a project being done there, but the rest of the time was pretty awful, little interaction, too much time on my hands, etc.
It’s good to get those preferences sorted out while you’re still in school!
Posted 15 Jul 2008 at 12:06 pm ¶Trackbacks & Pingbacks 1
[...] takes from his internship exactly what you’re supposed to (no, not Post-Its) — knowledge of what he does, and does not, want post-college to be like. [david giesberg dot [...]
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