Part I: Motivations & Future Goals
As a little bit of an older student, I have a number of other internship experiences throughout my academic journey; more than students typically do with the same classification. With these past internships being either in academia or government research, I haven’t really had experience in industry or at a for-profit company.
One of the largest benefits I’ve encountered while working in industry, and more specifically at Indium Corporation, is that I have a goal. A goal in the sense that the work I’m doing will benefit the company operationally and/or monetarily. This is in contrast to my previous roles being, as previously stated, primarily research-based, where, in my experience, the goal isn’t explicit: you’ll either be endlessly working on a project, find out that someone else has the same idea, or ultimately write a paper.
Now, I’m not trying to imply that research isn’t valuable to the good of humanity; every technological advancement that we’ve made as a worldwide community is due to someone conducting research, experimenting, and theory crafting to find new possibilities. I’m just stating that research is not for me.
Another benefit of interning at Indium Corporation that is very important to me is the possibility of project continuation. My project has prospects of saving Indium Corporation capital while also increasing Indium Corporation’s positioning in terms of customer preference. This will hopefully result in good reception from management at Indium Corporation and more investment to be greenlit in our endeavors.
Part 2: Lunch-and-Learns
As I mentioned in my previous blog, we have an event occurring every week called an intern lunch-and-learn. In these lunch-and-learn events, we are provided with, of course, lunch, usually comprised of a nice sandwich or salad made by Indium Corporation’s chef. Following the conclusion of our meals or while we are finishing up, either a member of one of Indium Corporation’s internal teams or a guest speaker will present something valuable to the group. The subjects of these lunch-and-learn events have varied greatly, from personality assessment all the way to presentation best practices.
One event that stuck out to me particularly was our cultural awareness lunch-and-learn. Our HR department brought in Ms. Hilda Jordan, the founder and CEO of a local, Utica-area, equity consultancy firm. During this session, she involved an interactive presentation, instead of the session being purely lecture based and provided a space for true learning and collaboration.
One exercise involved guessing the ingredients to a dish aligning with her ethnicity. Not only did she physically share a part of herself, but also used the moment to point out that, even though questions were welcome and encouraged, we, as a group, glossed over the fact that we could’ve just asked her and gotten the answers without struggling. The lesson that we learned from this exercise was to not be too stubborn or scared to ask questions, while we increased a sense of belonging within the group.
Part III: Midpoint Presentation
Instead of doing a required final presentation for our internship, Indium Corporation has their interns participate in a midpoint presentation. During my internship period, this occurred during week 6. This was a very interesting way of showing our progress, because my past experiences had me accustomed to presenting following the completion of everything. However, I enjoyed the experience as a shake up, and it actually presented me with the opportunity to answer questions and receive feedback on how I could make my internship a better and more effective experience.
Generally, I, as well as many others, experience an immense amount of anxiety when presenting my work to others in an official environment. Despite this, I have never received the amount of support that we were given for these presentations (shoutout to the HR team.) Not only did I receive the usual encouragement and wishes of “good luck,” but the presentation environment was reserved for practice sessions that not only eased my mind, but also provided the opportunity to try out different keywords and sentence structures to clearly and concisely present the information from my project.
As I write this blog, I have also just received, for the first time ever, feedback from my presentation. Unbeknownst to me at the time, audience members were rating certain aspects of our presentation, writing comments, and providing constructive criticism on what could be done better. While some of the feedback included facts that I knew were true about my presentation style, it also contained some surprises. Whether it was applauding an analogy that I added last minute or that I used more filler words than I initially thought, I truly appreciate all the feedback, as I am hoping to someday be more confident when presenting and become great at it.
Part IV: Volunteer Day
Indium Corporation has a great history with their philanthropy and volunteerism, which trickles down to conducting an annual intern volunteer day. Occurring on the Thursday following midpoint presentations, our volunteer day took place at the Utica Children’s Museum. The museum was conducting part of their “Garden Club” program with this day pertaining to ornithology, or the branch of zoology that studies birds. Of the activities that included bird feeder creation and matching bird beaks to the food type, I got assigned to the owl pellet dissection station.
After receiving the assignment, I thought back to my days helping students at the karate school that I used to attend and got excited about helping kids learn about something new. Ranging from the ages of around 4-10, we had kids filter in and out of the classroom to find what bones and other things they could find. To my surprise, there was very little downtime, and we always had at least one youngster in there sleuthing around. Not one pellet that I saw didn’t contain the holy grail of pellet dissection – a skull. I know it sounds dark, but seeing the look on a kid’s face when they find a intact skull inside an owl pellet can even make the toughest person smile.
Part V: Conclusion
Although my internship isn’t over quite yet, we are quickly approaching the end date and I, consequently, can’t help but look back on the last two or so months with pure thankfulness. Not only am I happy to have the experience in an industry environment doing some work that’ll be beneficial for Indium Corporation and society, but I am extremely thankful for the opportunity to meet new people and learn about different cultures that I was previously ignorant of.
And don’t worry, I didn’t forget. As I’m sure my fellow interns have mentioned, a group of us, after Leticia’s birthday dinner, went to The Cremeria in Clinton and tried some gelato. And long story short, I will NEVER look at ice cream the same ever again.
Thank you to Indium Corporation, my supervisor, our HR team, and my fellow interns for a great summer that I won’t forget.
