Four Lessons from My Internship (So Far)

I’m a month and a half into my summer internship doing QA (Quality Assurance) for AMD in Austin and I have already learned several big things (and confirmed others) that should serve me quite well for some time to come…

• I hate commuting! - What better way to feel like a mouse in the exercise wheel than to spend an hour+ everyday doing the same stop and go shuffle with thousands of other people? To expand on that a little more: In the last several years, going to school and work for me has never involved driving more than 3-4 miles each way, at most, and with my current internship, I’m doing about 17 miles through the heart of the city.
• I enjoy working with people - A great deal of the time I spend in my job is doing head-down engineering/testing; I spend a great deal of my day just sitting in my cube running through tests and identifying bugs. I do not spend much time interacting with other people or working collaboratively, which is something that I need more than I would have suspected in the past.
• Cubicles are not interesting - But you knew that already, didn’t you? And just to make sure that they stay this way, the powers-that-be have stated that “Changing the look of your cube also affects the consistency and professionalism of the cube area and can negatively affect sound management.” Which basically means that I can’t do this.
• I’m not made for this sort of work - Most jobs can be classified into two categories (pardon the computer engineer-speak) interrupt-driven and non-interrupt-driven; interrupt-driven means that the workload is driven by external forces on a task-basis (”Hey, I need you to test this product” or “Welcome to McDonald’s, how can I help you?” where the tasks are very similar day-to-day) as opposed to being driven at a macro-level (”Build a tool or program that will do this” or “I need a design for a skyscraper, do it!” where each project will vary and will have multiple milestones). The work I am doing at present, is driven by other teams, and we don’t get to see the big picture - just the micro one, something that I have a hard time dealing with. I can’t handle a grind like that, I need to be working towards an end - not flipping hamburgers as each customer comes in.

All of these things are going to be filed away in my mind as I continue to keep my ear to the ground for future job opportunities, hopefully I’ll find the right job.