Guest Blogger: Marcella Hastings E15 on Interning with Google

Basics
I’m a junior studying computer science and math through Engineering, and I spent this past summer in New York City, doing a software engineering internship at Google. I was a part of the Engineering Practicum program, which is a subset of software engineering, focused on easing rising juniors into the internship and industry world. There were 25 people in my program in NYC, and over 200 interns across all capacities in the office.

The Project
I worked with DoubleClick for Publishers on the core front-end team. DfP is part of the Ads network, and essentially provides a web app for publishers (groups that want to host advertisements on their website, like the NYTimes) to organize all their advertisers and ads. I created a front-end feature for the website, it’s basically a save button. I worked with another intern in the EP program, and we had two full-time hosts on the team. We designed and implemented the entire system, including actually putting a button on the page and then making it work when it’s clicked on.

Daily Life
Since I was doing a software-focused internship, significant portions of my days were spent coding. Usually, I would get in around 9 (we set our own hours), grab breakfast with a couple of interns, and sit down to work in the morning. I’d check in with my partner, who sat next to me, and we’d talk about design details, issues we were running into, and what the interns were doing that day. Google engineers can’t submit code to the codebase without getting it reviewed by another engineer, so I’d see if I had any reviews to go over and send back comments to my reviewers. Around 12:30 or 1 we’d go to lunch, sometimes with our team and sometimes with other interns. In the afternoons, I’d have meetings with my UX designer, go to a class or lecture with the other EP interns, and play a bit of ping-pong in the game room before going back to work until dinner.

Things I Didn’t Expect to Learn
I can go on for ages about the technical details and coding techniques that I learned, but that’s pretty typical at a software engineering internship. More interesting are the observations I made about working at a large company. Initially, I thought my project would take three or four weeks. If you isolate the save button, it’s not that hard: draw a button, and when it’s clicked on, grab the interesting data and put it somewhere accessible. However, integrating it into an enormous existing codebase is much more difficult. I had to understand what already existed, how it worked, and whether I could use it for my purposes. It was necessary to have a broader understanding of the moving pieces in the system and how they fit together in order to get my small piece working.

The Program
The Engineering Practicum program was awesome. I worked at a large company with a lot of resources and a philosophy that happy employees work better. Thus, their intern program was awesome.
Learning: We had weekly classes on both generally important ideas in software development and more Google-specific topics, including security, building reliable systems, and writing healthy code.
Speakers: At a company full of cool people, it’s remarkably easy to find speakers to talk about things they’re excited about. We had speakers ranging from the head engineer on Google Glass to Peter Norvig, director of Research at Google and creator of the PowerPoint Gettysburg Address.
Social: There were a million ways to get to know other people in the company, and every event open to company employees was also open to interns. I got lunch with my team every couple of days, but we also had larger events like a laser tag outing, a Grease-themed company summer picnic, and an all-intern boat cruise.

How Do I Sign Up?
Google has tons of internship opportunities for students of all different backgrounds. The largest group, of which I am a part of, is engineering interns, however there are also opportunities for people interested in design, user experience, sales and marketing, and product management. There is a smorgasbord of other ways to get involved with the Google community, including but not limited to summer camps, student ambassador programs, and open source projects, all of which are described on the Google Students page. Feel free to contact me if you’ve got questions!

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Internship Grant Recipient Profile: Nicholas Martinez...

by Angela Sun

Apply for the Tufts Career Center Summer Internship Grant! A total of 40 grants will be awarded this year, at a value of $3500 each. Grants will be awarded in the categories of Non-Profit/ Public Sector, AS&E Diversity, Entrepreneurial Leadership, and Innovation in Science & Technology. To help you prepare for your application due March 29, we will be presenting a three-part series featuring last year's internship grant recipients.

Nicholas Martinez is a Mechanical Engineering major from the class of 2014. Last year, Nicholas was awarded an Entrepreneurial Leadership grant to work at Rock Health.

1. Tell me about Rock Health, and what did your internship consist of?

Nicholas Martinez

Rock Health is an incubator company that works with startups specialized in the digital health field. Last summer, the practice was run out of Harvard instead of San Francisco. I enjoyed the internship because I got to do a lot of different kinds of work. I helped with logistics such as scheduling mentor office hours and meetings, but also got to work with start-ups in product development. I researched what would be the most efficient, cost-efficient, and smallest parts to use in a device, and helped create 3D CAD prototype models. Working alongside HBS and Sloan graduates exposed me to the business side of start-ups.

2. What projects did you get to work on at your internship?

I got to work a little more closely with two teams in particular. The first team is called Neumitra and they are designing a device that you wear on your wrist (it will eventually be embedded into a watch) that monitors your stress levels in real time. One can also link this device up to their phone so that when they get stressed, the phone can respond with a message, music, or suggest a game. It is really cool technology and I was in charge of helping them find individual parts that would be used for the device.

The second team was Podimetrics and they are designing a bathroom floor mat that helps to detect diabetic foot ulcers. Foot ulcers cause thousands of amputations every year yet are highly treatable if diagnosed early. This mat scans the foot while the person brushes their teeth, does their make-up, shaves, etc. and determines if there is a problem area developing. If so, the device sends a red flag to the person’s doctor and the doctor then has them come in for a check-up. I worked with them on some of their design criteria. One of their biggest problems is that they want the mat to be as inconspicuous as possible and thus, the design and layout of the mat is extremely important.

2. How did you secure your internship?

I had a distant family connection to Rock health as one of my mom’s friends had been an advisor there in the past. She knew that I was very interested in opportunities to apply engineering to the healthcare field, so she introduced me to the company. From there I went through a series of interviews, which included two phone interviews and one in person.

3. How did you apply for the Tufts Grant? What do you think made for your successful application?

The application was actually pretty easy for me to write because I was very passionate about the internship and the questions for the application seemed to set me up well for showing this passion. I was interested in Rock Health because I knew that I would gain experience in a lot of different areas working with a lot of different teams. To me this is the goal of an internship in that I was able to obtain a large variety of skills in an area that I knew I wanted to work in.

4. What have you gained from the overall experience?

This experience has confirmed that I do indeed want to get into the healthcare field and help others. I'm excited about this growing field in which a lot of cool new technology will be emerging. Also, from my experience, I have given more thought to getting an MBA at some point later in my career. From watching the startups, I have realized how valuable a person with both technical knowledge and business knowledge is.

5. Do you have any advice for students applying for the grant/ starting internships?

If I were to give advice to someone applying for the grant, I would just say that being passionate about the internship will give you the best chance of getting it because it will show in your application

The application for the internship grant can be found here.

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Super Sneak Peek for Friday's Internship Fair!

By Angela Sun

Apps on apps, it's time to lock-in your summer internship! Luckily, this Friday, March 8, 2013 from 12:00-3 PM @ 51 Winthrop Street, you'll have over 40 chances to make that happen at the Tufts Summer Internship Fair!


Some of our past posts about career fairs will help you prepare for the internship fair:
Prepare for the Fair - Do Your Homework
Prepare for the Fair - I'm Here! Now What?
Top 10 Reasons to Attend the Tufts Career Fair 

Here are some employer highlights. Find the opportunity that combines your interests by researching what the company does AND what kinds of internships they offer. (TIP: Unpaid? No sweat! Apply for the Tufts Career Center Summer Internship Grant before March 29th.)

Science/ Engineering + Public Affairs
The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection seeks Biology, Chemistry, Environmental Studies, Civil Engineering, and Environmental Engineering students for various paid and unpaid internships. This is the perfect opportunity for students with a strong science background but also a passion for public affairs. Check their employer page on Jumbo Jobs for more details about work authorization requirements.

Communications/ Marketing + Sociology
Calling all digital natives...just take a look at the tabs you have open, you know who you are! Communispace is a really cool market research agency that creates its own 'private online community of consumers' and draws marketing insights from studying them. If you have an interest in communications, or sociology, chat with Communispace about their paid Community and 'Idea Group' internships!

Music + Computer Science/ Engineering or  Communications/ Marketing
Musical? Enjoy music? You may have heard of Kurzweil Music Systems, manufacturers of electronic keyboards since the 1982. Like music and have an interest in computer science, engineering, or marketing? Kurzweil has paid opportunities in software engineering, quality assurance, and social media marketing!

Non-Profit + Communications or Development
The Mali Health Organizing Project will be recruiting students for development (fundraising, development, programming) and communications and media. Attention those with a knack and a desire for community organizing, non-profit work, the Mali Health Organizing Project is dedicated to improving maternal and child health in Mali and West Africa--reach out for an opportunity to work in their Boston headquarters!

The Color Dance, Claudia Hartley

Of course, there will be over forty employers at the internship fair--so check out the full listing of companies in finance, marketing, non-profits, and more, see you there!

Also note that we have a new feature on the horizontal task bar-- *Ask the Ambassador*. The lines are now open for post suggestions, questions you'd like answered, and people you'd like to see interviewed. Look forward to hearing from you!

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