Introdução
When stepping headfirst into this internship, I had no idea what to expect. I have never had a true engineering internship in a full office setting before. When applying at the beginning, I thought to myself, ‘This is just an internship, and I only need it for my professional experience course to graduate’. Oh boy, was I wrong. But being wrong was a good thing: this internship is teaching me how to better develop my skills within the modeling and simulation field, along with improving my documentation. Along with that, it is also improving my oral communication skills, team building, and other personal skills.
New People
During the first day, I thought that I wasn’t going to get to know anyone beyond my boss and possibly the HR team. I figured I would just be shadowing my boss and doing tasks for him as I was instructed to. I realized on the first day that this wasn’t the case when we did our introductions. The HR team passed around a ball with questions written on it and told us to answer the random question our right thumb landed on when we caught it. This threw me for a loop, but it was fun, engaging, and allowed me to learn about people within the internship.
After the first week, I figured I wasn’t going to talk to the other interns that much. I was dead wrong: all the interns at headquarters started eating lunch together every day we had the chance. This has been exciting because we always have new topics to discuss, making lunch a very social and enjoyable time.
I am also able to meet the co-op students at Indium Corporation because the internship’s weekly lunch-and-learns are open to them. This allows me to expand my horizons, meet new people besides those at Indium Corporation’s headquarters, have lunch with them, and connect.
Office Life
One thing that has shocked me when stepping into this internship is the incorporation of “The Indium Way”. When we were originally told about the Indium Way, and informed that it’s a major part of company culture, I thought to myself, “That’s just something they tell us to do, but no one actually follows it, right?” Thankfully, I was wrong. The Indium Way is all about respect, appreciation, and achievement. Whenever you step into the office, you are always greeted by someone saying good morning at the start of the day, even if you don’t know them yet. Everyone is friendly and open to talking to you about what they like about working in this environment and what they accomplish here at Indium Corporation. This allows me to build relationships within the company, and maintain those relationships, even if an employee leaves or switches positions.
While working within the office, I figured it would be very strict. I expected I would have to wear a button-up shirt and nice dress pants every day. I figured I would be stuck on my own in a random spot within the office. I was wrong once again: none of the interns were located by themselves, and we are all positioned in groups, which allows us to communicate with each other and really get to know our “office mates”. The dress code was also not as strict as the first day. We were quickly informed that we can wear polos and nice jeans to meet the dress code requirements, which creates a more comfortable environment for me than being dressed up all day.
Lunch-and-Learns
I’m glad that this internship is not like any average internship: it allows for professional experience within the industry, along with building my connections and strengths. For example, the Indium Corporation team conducts lunch-and-learns every Thursday for the interns, where they provide food and the time to connect with the other interns. At this, we all talk about how things are going with our specific projects, our interests, and really get to know everyone and connect. These sessions also feature special guest speakers that we get to meet and talk to. One of our lunch-and-learns taught us about our strengths that we had discovered, and another one taught us how to act professionally in a workplace setting.
During our CliftonStrengths lunch-and-learn, I really got to know more about the other interns that are here. This strengths assessment really provided meaningful results based on the questions and told us a lot about ourselves. From this, I learned that one of the other interns that I was previously acquainted with has a completely different top 5 skill set than I had thought. This was interesting to me; I figured he and I would have at least one top 5 skill in common, but turns out, we didn’t.
Personal Improvements from the Internship
Throughout the course of this internship, we were tasked with generating one presentation, through the internship program, and a second one, through my supervisor. These will both assist in my oral communication skills, which is a place I would like to improve upon. Both presentations will be about the tasks and accomplishments I have achieved while working here. They are both pre-scheduled at the start of the internship for the midpoint, week 5, and the end, week 10. I am looking forward to working on these presentations, as they will let me reflect on how much I have accomplished while working at Indium Corporation in the short time I was here. Along with improving my oral communication skills, I also expect to improve my professional written communication skills by sending professional emails and creating documents that will need to be referenced in the future by Indium Corporation. This will improve my organization with Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, as everything done needs to be documented. It will also expand my technical skills by informing and teaching me the other abilities that the Microsoft Suite offers.
I’m also excited to improve my 3D modeling skills and simulation abilities. My project involves generating material property cards for the alloys produced by Indium Corporation. My research abilities will also improve, as I will need to research all the material properties a company needs to run their own simulations using the data we generated. My simulation abilities are already improving, as I’ve been assisting a fellow intern in setting up and running simulations within the Fusion 360 software.
Conclusion
Overall, I am excited to continue learning and growing within myself and growing the company by generating results for my project. I will be excited to see how my perspective shifts and improves throughout the course of the internship.
