Internship Value

This internship was very valuable for me professionally and academically.  Besides the technical skills that I acquired by working with the programs, I also learned valuable lessons about meeting customer’s needs and interacting in an office environment.  When writing programs for a class or hobby, the customer does not exist.  You could say that it is the teacher, but the teacher already knows if the project is feasible, and usually has specific guidelines and expects what product to receive.  When working with people who are not computer scientists, much more responsibility is given to the developer.  I got several requests which were either technically impossible or simply a bad idea to implement.  Aesthetic taste comes into play as well.  Since the customer does not have specific requirements on the user interface design, it is the developer’s responsibility to provide an easy to use interface with good color scheme and formatting.

Working a consistent schedule also helped me determine how to organize my time.  The first summer I worked I was always tired, and would almost drowse off at work.  The following year I realized I had to go to bed earlier, so then my mind was fresh to come out with new ideas.  I found it difficult to have much of a social life during the week, but then the weekends I was free to do whatever since I had no ongoing assignments.  Probably later I’ll make friends at my job, but as an intern most of my coworkers had children as old as I was.