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Getting the Job
 This summer, from the 13th of
May through the 16th of August I was employed by the Federal
Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, also known publicly as Freddie
Mac. I began my internship search by talking with friends and
relatives who live in close proximity to the Northern Virginia
area. Networking through my fraternity alumni and my own family
also helped immensely. Through these contacts I found out about
many different potential employers and internship opportunities.
The most prominent employers I became interested in included
Booz Allen Hamilton, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Technology Management
Assistance Corporation (TMAC), PEC, and Resource Consultants
(RCI). Many other companies and businesses had internship opportunities
available, however they were not convenient for me due to various
reasons. They were either unpaid, too far of a drive, or offered
little or no usable job skills I would be able to apply as true
computer science experience.
With the search complete, I then began to formulate my resume.
To make this the most effective process I could, I researched
each company I applied to in order to attempt to asses what they
might look for in an internship candidate. Therefore, each resume
I sent out was in essence tailored to the individual company
I was applying to. Shortly after I mailed out my resumes I began
hearing back from the various employers. Basically, with the
economy in its downward spiral, the response from every company
was almost verbatim. Each company was very impressed with my
resume and were all interested in interviewing me for positions.
Unfortunately, they were also cutting back on their internship
programs in order to free up operating funds for other departments.
Most companies ended their letters in a very non-committal manner
and basically mentioned that if the funds became available they
would contact me immediately.
 As time rolled by and Spring
semester came to a close, I was still without a job. I was on
the phone almost daily talking to Human Resources representatives
for various companies trying to find out when the funds and internship
positions might open up. For most companies, they never did.
Finally, around the 10th of May I received a phone call from
the Human Resources Information Security department of Freddie
Mac. They were excited and had just been given the go-ahead to
hire an intern for the Summer. They offered me the opportunity
to have an interview the following Monday morning at 8 AM. Monday
morning I arrived in suit and tie at 7:45 and checked in with
building security. The interview began promptly at 8 AM and lasted
over 30 minutes. During this time they asked many questions regarding
computer science, the CS department at James Madison, as well
as many ethical questions. At 8:30 I was asked to wait until
9:00 AM for another interview. At 9:00 the director of Human
Resources asked me a few short questions regarding my history
with computers and technology and then asked if I could start
that day.
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About the Job
I was informed that I would be working in the building called
PHOII (Principal Headquarters Office #2). This massive building
was basically double the size of the CISAT A1 and A2 buildings
combined and was one of four buildings on the campus. Inside
PHOII were marble floors, high ceilings, and lots of security.
Every door in the building was security badge encoded, even the
restrooms. Each morning I found I had to account for 15 minutes
to work my way through all the security checkpoints. Checkpoints
existed at the parking garage, main elevator, front desk, the
hallways, and finally at the door to "The Box" (which
is the room I was assigned to). The Box was essentially the high
security room in PHOII. Inside, all the records and transactions
for all of Freddie Mac were updated, maintained, and stored.
There were eight of us inside The Box, myself being the only
intern. Each employee inside was granted full access to all employee
files and records, as well as payroll control and analysis.
My job was to assist my immediate supervisors, Scott Thorne,
Jackie Bryson, and Shannon Hiltner in performing their day to
day work. On any given day a great deal of paperwork and database
updates passed through the HRIS department, most of it time critical.
My work schedule was very flexible and essentially called for
me to be at Freddie Mac for 40 hours per week. I could serve
those hours in any way I pleased. This worked out amazingly well
for me, as I had a very long commute and found myself arriving
at work far before my superiors in order to avoid too much traffic.
I arrived at work Monday through Thursday at 7 AM, and left work
at 4:30 PM. On Fridays I worked from 7 AM until 12 Noon. I was
also granted off any vacation time I needed, so long as I made
up the missed time in the following weeks. This relaxed attitude
was very welcome and helped me become accustomed to the way things
worked at Freddie Mac. The work pace was constant but often very
relaxed and informal. Dress attire was business casual every
day which essentially consisted of me wearing Khakis and a collared
shirt each day.
My internship began with me basically learning PeopleSoft, the
PeopleSoft clients, and the rest of the general Freddie Mac software.
As I became more and more familiar with PeopleSoft in my first
week, my managers became aware of the speed at which I attained
familiarity with the program and as such they began assigning
me more technically interesting tasks and projects. Amongst these
projects was the use of a program only known to the HRIS department
which scanned every computer in Freddie Mac for illegally licensed
or pirated software. Other projects included System capacity
and load testing, software usability and acceptance testing,
suggestions on projects occurring in the PeopleSoft program office,
as well as various documentations projects related to the PeopleSoft
systems.
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Daily Activity Log Excerpts
Below is a week-by-week outline of the highlights of my time
at Freddie Mac. This will show some of the projects I worked
on as well as some of the extra benefits of interning at a company
as large as Freddie Mac.
Week 1:
Toured all of the Freddie Mac campus and the surrounding area
of McLean, VA.
I was introduced to the PeopleSoft 8.1 Web client as well as
the specially created PeopleSoft 7.5 Desktop client created specifically
for the HRIS department.
I was given various generic data entry tasks in order to completely
familiarize myself with PeopleSoft.
Week 2:
Introduced to the E-DIRECT REPORT CHANGES project. This project
was designed by Human Resources and the ISS department to design
and code a PeopleSoft compatible client which would allow company
supervisors to electronically enter what employees they oversaw.
Edited and Redesigned Help Files for the E-DIRECT Project. This
project used a lot of skills learned in TSC210 to double the
size and scope of the content. Also utilized skills from CS349
to create a more graphically pleasing and efficient menu system
for the help file. E-DIRECT went live on May 24th after extensive
testing by myself and the rest of the HRIS and ISS teams.
Began major testing of another HR / ISS project called E-106.
This project was set up to electronically allow managers, VPs,
Directors, and SVPs to send data correction requests to the HRIS
department office. I used many skills from CS345 in this project
such as the ability to create and use SRS Documentation and system
test cases.
Week 3:
Attended the Freddie Mac company seminar on Streaming Media.
The seminar discussed Streaming Media's applications at Freddie
Mac and took suggestions for implementation standards.
Began a new project with the ISS Department to ensure complete
compliance with the Freddie Mac Desktop regulations. This project
consisted of a small team of ISS and HRIS personnel who would
essentially run random scans of every desktop computer in Freddie
Mac (over 11,000 systems). This required the utmost security
as some of the systems we were scanning contained very sensitive
information. The scans would look for unethical content or unapproved
software on employee's systems. Any potential violations were
sent to ISS in order to issue summons to various employees to
inform them of the unapproved content on their hard drives. Repeated
offences were sent to HRIS where the employee could potentially
have their employment terminated, depending on the severity of
the violation.
Week 4:
Attended a company wide celebration in PHOI in honor of Freddie
Mac being named one of the "Top Companies to work for in
IT" by Information Technology magazine.
Created a new set of instructions and company memos to explain
in detail the new E-DIRECT system to company management. Over
2000 copies of this memo were circulated to every Freddie Mac
office in the country.
Began initial work to create a new PeopleSoft 8.1 Process and
Procedures book for the HRIS Department. This manual, which was
intended to be fewer than 200 pages, ultimately became a 700
page, two book project with VISIO Flows added in.
Week 5:
Completed Desktop Compliancy project. Received thanks from HRIS
and ISS for helping to get the company's systems back into compliancy.
As a celebration of the completion of the project, the HRIS Department
and ISS were treated to a luncheon at Tysons II.
Began project with ISS to design a new interface for the PeopleSoft
Desktop Client created by the Freddie Mac PeopleSoft Program
Office.
Began doing data checking and flow comparisons between the old
115M&CS databases and the new SQL PeopleSoft E-106 system.
With over 10,000 records to compare manually, this was a difficult
process. Luckily I found 99+ % of the errors in the data and
compiled a large report which was sent to the HRIS and ISS Vice
Presidents and Directors so that the discrepancies could be researched
and repaired prior to the release of E-106.
Attended the Freddie Mac IT Department's unveiling of MicroStrategy
7i. This new version is completely web based and is very similar
to PeopleSoft however it offers dramatically improved database
searching capabilities when compared to PeopleSoft. The software
is also "smart" and can learn to search better every
time the program is run. Essentially it improves its own search
algorithms to be more efficient by using a hidden layer architecture
similar to the AI programs we used in CS 344.
Week 6:
Off on Vacation!
Week 7:
A major issue arose during my vacation where there was a break
in the system that connects the PeopleSoft databases to the Meta
reporting system. The Meta system is in charge of reporting employee
information to the Web server and the telephone network. I was
given the task of locating this break. I initially tried brute
force tactics to locate the source of the problem, however after
no success I began researching employee records to find out where
the system went wrong and why. Ultimately I was able to conclue
that the Position Management module in PeopleSoft was not sending
updates to the Meta on certain days of the week. This error was
reported to ISS and repaired.
Performed system load testing to try and bring down the Freddie
Mac website. All of HR and ISS participated in this project.
Reviewed a new Desktop Compliance plan with ISS and created a
plan to have 95% compliancy in the company. This placed me in
charge of creating a plan to track software licenses in the company
when employees were terminated and their computers were erased
for the next employee to use that system.
Week 8:
Extensive research on Freddie Mac's software license procedures.
Attended multiple meetings with ISS and PeopleSoft Program Office
to discuss potential approaches to this dilemma.
Week 9:
Researched software piracy laws that affect Freddie Mac.
Participated in the Phase II Implementation of E-106. Tested
new menu systems and layouts for the ISS department.
Introduced to extensive use of MicroStrategy 7i on the first
day it was released to my department.
Week 10:
Extensive software testing of E-106 tied up most of this week.
Wednesday, the HRIS team was given a paid day off to goto Bowl
America for a team building day. Food and Drinks were all pre-paid
by Freddie Mac.
Week 11:
Completed the HRIS Processes and Procedures manual. The results
were very well accepted by HRIS Vice Presidents and Directors.
Performed testing of new Payroll Tax Systems. Due to the competition
with Fannie Mae and other companies, I had to sign non-disclosure
agreements on this multi-million dollar piece of software prior
to working on the team.
Had meetings with ISS and PeopleSoft Program Office Vice Presidents
and Directors to discuss potential future job openings.
Week 12:
Helped prepare a conversion from RESTrac to PeopleSoft Resume
Tracking Module software. This extensive project spanned the
entire week but was completed perfectly on schedule.
Week 13:
Completed all previous projects and tied up any loose ends so
as not to leave anything unfinished after I left the company.
As a special thank you from my HRIS Department and the Payroll
Department, I was taken out to a free lunch at Tysons II Galleria,
paid for by Freddie Mac.
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Career Advice for Current CS Students
Coursework from every CS class I have taken at JMU played a huge
role in this internship. Experience from CS344, 345, 349, and
TSC210 were the most helpful overall. My ability to be organized
and efficient made me a great asset to the HRIS team and my ability
to meet and interact well with my superiors helped me immensely.
Employees at Freddie Mac had extensive knowledge of PeopleSoft,
and generally had all MCSE and Oracle certifications as well
as a lot of SQL experience.
Overall, I suppose the best advice I can give is to gain as much
exposure to as many types of software and systems as you can
during college. Courses teach you concepts and processes, but
they rarely give you the type of exposure and experience companies
are looking for. Get out and get part time jobs dealing with
computers if possible, or donate your services to businesses
for free just to get the experience. Companies like Freddie Mac
look for experience, and when hiring new employees they look
for internship experience most of all. Choose an internship that
goes alongside what you want to do with your CS degree.
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Internship Value
Overall, I would have to rate the value of this internship as
imperative to my future career. The experience I gained and the
exposure I had to what working for a huge corporation like Freddie
Mac is like gave me an entirely new idea of what my CS degree
will do for me in the future. Ive learned I really enjoy working
with databases and networks, but I greatly dislike programming.
Information Security is a major intrest to me now as a result
of this internship. The connections and the friends I made while
employed there will be with me for years to come. I made enough
contacts and impressed enough people that I essentially received
the promise of a job when I get out of college in May. That greatly
relieves stress I had about the current job market and the difficulty
new college grads are having finding jobs right now. Internships
like the one I had get your foot in the door toward a future
with some amazing companies. Any CS student who does not do some
form of CS internship is missing out on a golden opportunity
for his/her life and career.
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