The middle-mark.....

As the middle-mark of their 16 month internship is upon them Chloe, Dan, Johan and Olivia reflect on what they’ve learned so far at IBM.


What is your role at IBM?

Chloe: I’m a Corporate Communications Intern for the Centre for Advanced Studies (CAS) Research department in IBM. Because CAS is a department which spends most of it's time reaching out to professors and researchers, there's a lot of clear communications to be done.

Dan: I'm a technical enablement specialist. I do the technical side of presentations/demonstrations of InfoSphere Warehouse (an IBM software product).

Johan: As a Software Prototype Developer at IBM Canada's Centre of Advanced Studies (CAS), I implement and refine prototypes of various design ideas that CAS researchers are exploring, with a focus on Cloud Computing.

Olivia: I’m a “Market Analyst” on IBM’s Software Group’s Market Insights Team; I piece together info to create a picture of what the Software market looks like for different IBM brands. I’m also the Communications Team Lead for IBM’s intern/co-op club, Future Blue (so among other things, I run this blog: www.futureblue.wordpress.com ).


What skills you have picked up so far during your internship?

Chloe: The biggest skill I've picked up is event management and event planning. A huge part of the CAS year is the CAS Conference, CASCON, a 4 day conference which requires programming and deliverables (program guides etc.) for 1300+ participants who all need to be aware of what's going and equipped with all the important information.

Johan: I've picked up plenty of skills, but the ones that I think IBM brought out from me the most are the ability to think quickly on my feet, to look for those brilliant light bulb solutions that seem so obvious once you thought of it, and the ability to learn new concepts and technologies quickly; really quickly.

Olivia: My ‘soft skills’ have really beefed up because of my internship. I now have great practice and proof of my teamwork, initiative, and analytical abilities to name a few. What’s great is that these are transferable skills, so I can apply them at any job I may have after graduation and down the road. The surprising skills I’ve picked up are my email and phone communication skills since so many people I work with on a regular basis I’ve never met, because they work at another IBM location.

What technologies have you learned or become more familiar with?

Chloe: I have an improved knowledge of excel and just recently of Linux. I spent most of my secondary and post-secondary education on a Mac so just learning how to present well and do my work on PC-based products has been an experience. Other than that my biggest learn has been about Databases and how to use them for jobs like my own.

Dan: While here I've created a demonstration showing off InfoSphere Warehouse in a scalable, cloud-like environment using VMwave ESXi. I've had hands time on with servers that have a dozen CPU cores and over a hundred gigabytes of RAM. I've gotten to operate these servers myself and do some assembly too. I also got DB2 database certified to boot.

Johan: During the course of my internship, I've had the opportunity to do RESTful Web Services design with Ruby and Sinatra, Web UI development with jQuery and HTML5, and work on large scalable systems supported by NoSQL databases.


What networks/friends you have established?

Chloe, Dan, Johan, Olivia: We’ve all reached out to people on our respective teams, but also to other Future Blue students. It’s been nice to share lunch time conversations and participate in after-work activities with others like ourselves at IBM.


How comfortable are you in your role at IBM now? Compared to when you started?

Chloe: There are certain parts of my role, mostly people related where I am much more comfortable than when I started. I understand more about version control of documents and action words in emails to trigger people performing a task. I'm also much more comfortable in planning large-scale events as well.

Dan: I've come to like working at IBM so much over the first half of my internship. At first it was scary. I thought I had too many questions about IBM products that they could never all be answered. But they pretty well all have been and I feel totally empowered to tackle any project my team gets.

Johan: When I first started it felt quite peculiar to think of myself as an IBMer. It seemed that all my life I've always been a Student and being an IBMer and applying all those things I've learned as a student was such a novel experience for me. Now, 7 months later, I feel like I've been an IBMer all along and yet I'm still a student who's still learning something new every single day.

Olivia: I felt like 80% of the time I had no idea what was going on when I first started my role in May. What were these complicated software products and how did they work? How do I work on questions where there are no right answers? What was the protocol on emails, asking for help? The list was endless. And following the slew of acronyms and buzz words on conference calls was near impossible. I was worried I wouldn’t learn fast enough, and that I’d always feel confused, especially when the more senior interns left at the end of the summer. But amazingly, I transitioned easily and now I’m excited, not intimidated when managers ask for my help on projects. It’s been a huge confidence booster!