When I received my internship offer from Indium Corporation, one of the first things I did was open LinkedIn and see if I had any mutual connections at the company. I found exactly one person.
I will come back to him in a moment.
At the time, I did not know much about Indium Corporation. In fact, before my interview, I had never even heard of the company. I also could not find many people from my field, Information Technology, working there. As a result, I was a little nervous about accepting the internship.
I was about to fly all the way from Colorado to New York to spend my summer with a company I knew very little about. Looking back, it felt like a leap of faith. Fortunately, it turned out to be one of the best decisions I could have made.
A few months before my first day, a lot of questions started running through my mind. As an international student, my understanding of New York was embarrassingly simple. New York meant skyscrapers, Times Square, yellow taxis. When someone mentioned Upstate New York, I honestly had to open a map. I quickly learned that New York is much bigger than I had imagined, and that there is an entirely different side of the state that rarely appears in movies or TV shows.
Instead of crowded streets and towering buildings, I found scenic landscapes, welcoming communities, and a pace of life that was completely different from what I expected. I did not know anyone in the area, and I assumed I would have to figure out housing, transportation, and everything else on my own.
Thankfully, the HR team at Indium Corporation had other plans.
I probably sent them far more questions than any intern should. Some were thoughtful, some were practical, and a few probably had obvious answers. Yet every single question was met with patience and kindness. They never made me feel like I was asking too much. Long before I arrived in New York, they had already helped me feel welcomed and supported.
Now, back to that one LinkedIn connection.
I reached out and introduced myself as an incoming intern at Indium Corporation. To my surprise, he responded almost immediately. He answered my questions, shared his experiences, and helped me better understand the company. What made the conversation even more meaningful was that his story sounded a lot like mine. He was also an international student who had started as an intern and later joined Indium Corporation full time.
That was the moment I realized that Indium Corporation was not only welcoming, but also genuinely diverse. People from different backgrounds, experiences, and cultures could find a place here and thrive.
My first day at Indium Corporation confirmed everything I had started to believe. The onboarding experience included introductions from people across different departments, each sharing insights about the business and their own experiences. While I learned a great deal about the company, I learned even more about the people behind it.
Then something happened that genuinely surprised me.
During lunch with our supervisors, the CEO walked in and started talking with every intern individually. As someone who had only ever seen CEOs in company-wide emails or carefully staged presentations, this caught me completely off guard. Here was the leader of a global company taking the time to have real conversations with interns on their very first day.
That interaction taught me something important about Indium Corporation’s culture. The hierarchy exists, but it does not create barriers. People are approachable, conversations are encouraged, and everyone’s perspective matters.
What surprised me even more was how quickly people remembered my name. As a new intern, you expect to spend the first few days introducing yourself repeatedly. Instead, people I had met only briefly would stop me in the hallway and ask how my first week was going.
As my first week progressed, I continued learning about the company’s products, customers, and operations. Daily meetings with my supervisor helped me understand the business, but what truly helped me understand Indium Corporation were the everyday interactions.
Whether it was in the elevator, at the coffee machine, or in the cafeteria, people were always willing to stop and talk. Almost every conversation ended with some version of, “Feel free to reach out if you need anything.” And they genuinely meant it.
As an international student attending a university outside New York, figuring out transportation was one of my biggest challenges. Without hesitation, colleagues offered rides and advice to help me get around. Those small acts of kindness made a big difference.
The same was true of the relationships I built with my fellow interns. Between group lunches, shared experiences, and plenty of laughs, I quickly realized that an internship is about much more than completing a project. It is also about the people you meet and the memories you create along the way.
One of the most eye-opening parts of my internship was visiting one of Indium Corporation’s manufacturing facilities.
As a computer science student, manufacturing was completely outside my domain. I had never worked in that environment before, and I had little understanding of the processes involved.
Suddenly, I was seeing processes, equipment, materials, and operations that I had previously only heard about. Some of the concepts were new to me, but everyone I met was willing to explain not only what they were doing, but also why it mattered. That made the learning process both approachable and exciting. They did so while patiently answering my endless stream of questions.
Experiences like that reminded me that some of the best learning happens when you step outside your area of expertise and allow yourself to be a beginner again.
Another highlight of the internship has been the lunch-and-learn program. Not only do interns get free lunch, but we also have opportunities to develop professionally through sessions on leadership, strengths, communication, presentation skills, and career growth.
While technical skills help you get started in your career, communication, leadership, and teamwork are often what determine long-term success. The lunch-and-learn sessions have given me opportunities to think about these broader skills and how I can continue developing them, regardless of the industry I work in.
These sessions demonstrate that Indium Corporation’s investment in interns extends beyond the projects we work on during the summer. The company wants us to leave with skills and experiences that will benefit us throughout our careers, regardless of where those careers eventually take us. It is a reminder that great internships are not only about what you contribute. They are also about how much you grow.
As I write this, I am only a few weeks into my internship, yet I have already gained valuable professional experience, meaningful relationships, and a much deeper appreciation for the people who make Indium Corporation what it is.
I do not know exactly where the rest of this internship will take me, but I do know this: every morning, I look forward to coming to work, and that has as much to do with the people as it does with the work itself.
For me, that is the human side of Indium Corporation.
