What I liked
At my internship, I was given almost total independence. I didn’t have to clock in or out, and I wasn’t constantly being checked in on. When I was given a task, I was always encouraged to check with my supervisor when clarification was needed; otherwise, my superiors trusted that I was doing what I was supposed to be doing. Compared to previous jobs where I felt like I was treated far younger than my age even though I knew that I could handle the level of responsibility I was given, I really enjoyed this aspect. With that independence came the expectation that I was doing my job. I would be proud of myself for figuring out a complicated obstacle when writing a code, and I was excited to receive praise for it. But I came to learn that all my superiors cared about was the final product and that it worked, correctly. They didn’t know or care about the individual obstacles I faced when getting to the final product. This was hard for me to adjust to, but I learned that as long as I was proud of my work and my superiors were satisfied with the results that was enough. During my internship, I presented to a group of high school students about my department’s work and my project work, so far. I also completed an intern readout video near the end of my intern experience. These tasks gave me the opportunity to reflect on what I had done and learned throughout this experience. I directly witnessed how all the different types of engineers doing different jobs came together, interacted, and
ultimately relied on one another. I shared a cubicle with two mechanical engineer interns, so I also got to learn about the projects they were working on, and could see how down the line they interacted with the work I was doing. My understanding of how each part of the company worked together, from hardware to firmware to software, from employee to customer, from drawing to prototype to product, grew as I learned more about the company, my duties, and my co-workers duties. Knowing these connections gives me a better understanding of my options for moving forward in an electrical engineering career.
