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University of Michigan Internship Fair ‘08

Published
by
Hung
on January 22, 2008
in Job and School
. 3 Comments

So I headed on down to the internship fair today happening at the Union.

First thing that I noticed was that everyone was wearing suits! My opinion on suits is that I hope I’ll never work anywhere that requires one, except for maybe at a company formal party or something. I guess it’s pretty standard attire for an internship fair, but I think distinguishing yourself is important too. Everyone looks the same in a suit. Luckily, I distinguished myself as the idiot who didn’t bring a suit.

Mostly I just wandered around looking all the companies. Quite a few had really long lines just to talk to a recruiter. The place was packed, too. There were probably a few hundred people in any given room.

I talked to some people from Liberty Mutual. The guy was laid back and pretty cool. He told me to check their website for any openings, and I got a pen and a weird bendy thing (it’s like, a blue bendy stick).

I also checked out this local web development company called Enlighten. They were laid back as well. I talked to them a bit about web development and they gave me some cool magnetic thinking putty. I played with it. It’s sorta magnetic, but not highly magnetic. Like you wouldn’t replace an industrial strength electromagnet with it or anything.

Most of my social interactions went pretty smoothly, I must say. There was one that I could probably call the worst of the year so far. I went up to the Macy’s corner and some guy said something and stuck out his hand. Now, I know when a person wants to shake my hand, I’m not an idiot. But I didn’t hear what he said, and I thought he said something like, “name?” So I was like, “Hung,” and I pointed to my name tag. Then he said something else I couldn’t hear, so I said it louder and pointed more furiously, “HUNG!” I thought he wanted to take something, instead of shaking my hand. Anyway, I finally shook his hand.

Then, I asked if there were any engineering type jobs at Macy’s. He said that no, there were only management type jobs. I guess our interaction could’ve just ended there. But then I noticed something.

Standing right behind the guy was a larger version of the guy. It was him, but bigger, and printed out on a large piece of paper.

“Is… that… you?” I slowly asked with furrowed brow. “THAT’S YOU!” And indeed, it was him on the promotional banner. He said it was taken a year or so ago. Without thinking, I said something like, “Could you stand next to it and do the same pose!?” I think he was starting to get tired of my shenanigans. He actually contemplated it before not doing it. Then he suggested I leave by saying something like, “well, good luck in your internship search!” I took the hint, but not before asking for a bouncy Macy’s ball.

It glows when you bounce it.

Internship Searching Season 2008

Published
by
Hung
on January 6, 2008
in Job and School
. 0 Comments

So January (and in some ways, December) is the time to start looking for internships. I’ve already done quite a bit of looking along with sprucing up my portfolio site (the projects section has accordion effects now!) and updating my resume.

I think part of the reason it’s difficult to search for internships is because I’d like to define the internship rather than the employer defining it for me. I understand the need to succinctly say, here’s what the internship position is, but too often I end up seeing generic “software engineering” of which I have no idea what they entail.

Hey, maybe some potential companies are looking at my blog! Then I can define what I’m looking for in an internship and they can contact me if they agree! But part of the problem is that I’m also unsure of what I’m looking for in an internship. Okay, perhaps a lengthy blog post will fix that.

I’m originally a classically trained Computer Scientist. That’s what my B.S. is in, and that’s what I can do on paper. So I should qualify for all of these generic Software Engineering positions. Going into grad school, I’ve been under the impression that maybe there is something more interesting than vanilla software engineering. Of course, my knowledge of “vanilla software engineering” is not really based on facts of any kind. I did some freelance software engineering work for a company over the Summer, but I don’t think that’s indicative of any typical SE work. Actually, it’s probably generally false to assume that there exists a typical software engineering job. Maybe I’m oversimplifying. Anyway, let’s move along.

So far, I’ve been happy with my grad school experience. There are a lot of ideas floating around, a lot of real research being done, and smart people all around. I’ve done a project in my Networks class that could theoretically be considered research, and I find it interesting to just investigate things for the sole purpose of learning stuff.

My question is, what should I look for in an internship?

Of course I want to learn something. Do I want to get a research internship? Would a software engineering internship betray the academic lifestyle I’ve so enjoyed? Am I being an internship snob?

This is what’s going on in my head. Let’s take a brief interlude by checking out the internships I think are totally awesome, and why I think they’re awesome!

Not surprisingly, Google is on the top of my list for their internships. One reason is that their recruiting is second to none, seriously. Just look at Google’s internship page (which is fairly simple to find from their homepage) and compare it to Yahoo’s… oh wait, they don’t have an internship page to speak of. The Yahoo one just tells you to type “intern” in their way bad job search engine…

Okay, so onto the Google internships. The single internship I want most is “Associate Product Manager Intern.” Tangent: I was at the Google info session last year and talked to someone about opportunities for someone who was an engineer but has become slightly “more.” Again, I don’t want to sound like a snob or anything, I’m just talking about additional education. The Google guy told me I might want to apply as a PM. Apparently, Product Manager is an entry level position. I always thought that Software Engineers were promoted to PM status after working for a while. Anyway, the description leads me to believe that this is right up my alley:

The area: Product Management

Google’s Product Management group leads the processes that enable our company to bring innovative, world-changing products to market. Our team works closely with Engineering to help design and develop technologies that improve access to the world’s information. We’re responsible for analyzing user needs and guiding our products throughout the execution cycle. Our team offers a range of opportunities for candidates with less than two years of job experience who desire breadth and variety in their job responsibilities.

The role: Associate Product Manager Intern

As an Associate Product Manager Intern, you’ll work with engineers to define new features for existing products based on your understanding of user needs. You’ll also conduct research on markets and our competitors, focus on strategies that impact the direction of future products and develop leadership experience in a variety of Google’s product areas. Associate Product Manager Interns are given important responsibilities, generous access to resources and many opportunities to learn about other areas the organization. Technical, analytical and strategic planning skills are vital to performing successfully in this position.

Responsibilities:

  • Understanding and analyzing user needs.
  • Helping to define a product vision and strategy.
  • Working with world-class engineers to build and launch new features.

Requirements:

  • Currently pursuing a BA/BS in Computer Science or related field, and graduating in 2009.
  • Excellent written and oral communications skills.
  • Strong organizational and analytical skills.
  • Strong technical abilities.
  • Demonstrated capacity for developing and understanding strategy.
  • Deep interest in creating and analyzing products.

At this point, I think this position is about as close to my ideal internship as any will get. I really enjoy coming up with new products and applications. I like designing and building them, and analyzing them! It seems like it would balance creativity and practice pretty well.

Do any other companies take interns for PM positions? It still seems a bit strange to me, not that I would complain if I got it…

Google also has an internship for Software Engineering Statistician Intern. I think the requirements for that one are maybe a bit out of reach for me (I’m taking a stats course this semester) but it seems interesting.

As far as other prospects go, I was already shot down for a Facebook Internship, but that one was in Software Engineering. There is a full time position for “Data Insights” that seems interesting. I want to apply for it and ask if they’ll take me as an intern.

Another interesting “make mine an internship” internship could be the Research Analyst position on Digg’s job page. I’ve read that companies aren’t as averse to internship-ifying jobs as one might think. It shows I have the proactivity to get things done, right? Right!?

There are a few research labs that I was thinking of applying to as well. PARC, IBM, Microsoft, Yahoo (if they ever get any posts up). All of those labs have some group that is interested in social computing in one way or another. Yahoo is actually especially interesting because their labs have access data to Yahoo properties like Flickr, Delicious and Yahoo 360.

And those are just about all the places that I have considered so far. I think at this point, it is difficult for me to find an “appropriate” internship because there haven’t been any graduates from the University of Michigan School of Information with the specialization in Social Computing yet. It’s new from last semester!

Anyway, if you have any good suggestions, please leave a comment, or you can use my contact form that’s on my about page, too!

SOCHI Google Android Design Challenge

Published
by
Hung
on December 9, 2007
in Code and School
. 0 Comments

android_robot.gif

So the SOCHI group at Michigan had a fun Google Android Design Challenge thingy last week. SOCHI is the student organization for computer-human interaction. I guess I should’ve capitalized all those words… Oh, and Android is the OHA’s new mobile development platform.

Basically, we all had a brainstorming session with ideas for fun new mobile apps. There were a lot of cool ideas thrown out. Afterwards, we all got into smaller groups and developed some app ideas. Our group came up with this sensor that tells you if you’re in close proximity to someone really often. I believe there was some study done where people wore these RFID things and it turned out that they were in close proximity to complete strangers very often (like at the bus stop or grocery store or something). So the app could say, “hey, you’re together often, maybe you should be friends” or something.

The coolest part of the meetup was that it was partly sponsored by Google, which means there was free pizza, drinks, and most importantly, Google cups. They were the same as that one red Google cup I got as my consolation prize (the grand prize being a job at Google). I picked up one of each color (blue, green, yellow and red) since I didn’t know if they’d go to waste afterwards. I guess SOCHI just sorta stows them away until another Google sponsored event. Oops!

Writing this post is also a way for me to procrastinate on my business plan which is due tomorrow for my entrepreneur class. The business? A software development company specializing in mobile applications on the Android platform. Which it wasn’t at the beginning of the semester, but that’s a whole other story…

Yahoo Guest Speaker: Bradley Horowitz

Published
by
Hung
on November 27, 2007
in Code and School
. 0 Comments

Today there was a guest talk by one Bradley Horowitz over at the Computer Science building on North Campus. The title, “Innovation and Evolution -How Search, Social Media, and New Ideas can Shape the Next Web,” intrigued me enough to compel me to check it out.

Much of the talk was devoted to Flickr, and how lots of useful information can be extracted from the inherent metadata of tags, traffic, and geodata of the photos on the site. For example, Flickr can make a list of “interesting” photos, figure out correlations between tags and photos (it can semi-distinguish between photos of love between two people, love as a symbol, and love as puppies), and figure out the location of Route 66.

I was vehemently unimpressed by an earlier Yahoo talk this year, but today’s was neat. Probably because the speaker knew what he was talking about. Fun fact: the speaker is VP of the Advanced Development Division at Yahoo. Or ADD. Apparently the name was not an accident. He mentioned quite a few interesting things like their “Brick House” incubator, and a few products of it like Pipes and something called Kickstart.

Kickstart seems to be something of a mix between Facebook and LinkedIn. Or something. I had to sign up for a Yahoo account to use it. Minor tangent: I hate Yahoo because I can’t get the login info for all of my old usernames (because I don’t use them anymore) so whenever I want to use something Yahoo, I have to sign up for a new account. And since Yahoo has so many users, no sane usernames exist anymore. It took me like 30 minutes to come up with escargoal (like a cross between escargot and goal)!

I’m not sure how many social networks Yahoo wants… They’ve got that Yahoo 360, Mash, Kickstart… I guess an alternate strategy to buying Facebook could be diluting the social network market…

But anyway, the talk was pretty cool, though somewhat high level for a crowd of CS kids (and SI kids, I suppose). Where was the talk of computational complexity and algorithms in Flickr!? The talk has at least rewarmed my interest in looking for a Summer internship at Yahoo, possibly in the ADD…

Facebook Information Session at Umich

Published
by
Hung
on October 4, 2007
in Facebook, Job and School
. 0 Comments

So tonight there was a Facebook info session up at North Campus in the exact same room as the Yahoo one was, exactly one week ago to this very day!

In stark contrast to the Yahoo one, there were actually engineers, and they actually told us what they did, and why they liked it. Bob Trahannypoo (was that really his name?) and Jon Warman did the talking.

The info session was very geared towards engineers, and I found it interesting that a lot of the stuff they talked about seemed like shared knowledge among the room. Like they’d reference f8 and just assumed we knew what that was. I got all the references, but I’m not sure about other people.

Before the session, I was pretty convinced that Facebook was a solid company and seemed fun to work for. Now, I’m even more convinced. When your engineers answer questions like PR people, you know you’ve built a pretty good company culture.

Also, for anyone who hates the “is” in the status updates, I asked them if they could remove it when they asked for questions. The answer I got was “no, but maybe when we internationalize the ‘is’ will go away.” So good news on that front.

As far as schwag goes (it’s always a factor), I got some neat Facebook branded gum and M&Ms. If I ever decide not to be lazy, maybe I’ll take pictures. On the downside, no pens, notebooks, post-its, or shirts! Come on, guys! All the Silicon Valley companies are doing it!

The only thing that really sorta annoyed me was that I had tried and tried to get an interview with them. Because I’m not in the Engineering school of Michigan, I couldn’t log into their super special system. I still tried contacting the Facebook HR people but they never replied. I physically handed them my resume, so hopefully they’ll have a slot open tomorrow. I felt a bit of Engineering snobbery going on (as in, you’re nothing if you’re not an engineer), which is funny since I still consider myself an engineer (B.S. in Comp Sci == Engineer, right?). But I guess that’s the price I pay for entering the School of Information…

I’m still convinced that SI is a good choice, and also that Facebook rocks. Let’s see if something good happens.

EDIT: I got an interview, so it looks like I’ll be reading a bit of the algorithms book tonight.