Bring On Week 2

Monday, June 4 - Friday, June 8. 

I think the second week is the hardest week out of the whole internship. It is the week that you finally start getting settled into your desk area, and should hopefully be starting to dig into the codebase you will be working on for the duration of the summer. The first time you submit code into the Google codebase is so exciting! It is a great feeling knowing that, depending on your project, your code at Google may impact tons of people all around the world! So why is it so hard? Well there is a lot to learn when you are put into a new situation: the way your codebase works, the way your team works, and the way you should work to be as productive as possible. It can be very overwhelming, and I think that it is a very common feeling... This, of course, is only my opinion. The picture below is something that I've seen multiple times at Google in presentations: we get lots of information given to us in the first couple of weeks. 

Being a Noogler can sometimes feel like this

Don't let this scare you. Being a Googler is so much fun! There are a lot of perks and awesome people that make the atmosphere one of a kind! This week was mostly work for me, so I decided to put the week in one post - along with random pictures of the building I work in.

My building MTV-1900

Monday.

I had lunch with my EP mentor! So, we were supposed to have emailed our mentors and set up a lunch during the first week, but my week was a bit hectic so I ended up forgetting. Oops. I felt even worse when I found out that my mentor was actually the really nice Googler we met at the shuttle stop one day that told us Charlie's cafe has good waffles. (She had also mentioned that we should email our EP mentors) I ran into her on Friday, and realized that I really needed to set up a lunch. lol Anyways, my mentor, Sabrina, is really cool! We ate lunch at cafe Steam. All I remember eating is some delicious soup, and Mango Chile flavored ice cream! MMMMM...

My building also has a slide!

Unrelated to Google, this was also the first day of the Young Women in Computing (YWiC) summer camp. The YWiC program is very near and dear to my heart. During the school year, I work with YWiC as an undergraduate research assistant. I get to play with cool technologies, plan fun curriculum, go to conferences, and so much more in an effort to inspire young girls to pursue computer science or technology careers. I LOVE IT! I'm also a YWiC alumni, and YWiC is actually the reason that I decided to study computer science. The program helped me find my passion, and we hope to do the same for other females! This year YWiC welcomed 60 students (40 middle school + 20 high school) to NMSU for the 6th annual summer camp. After all of the planning that we put in during the semester, I was kind of sad that I wasn't able to be there this summer. Regardless, I know all of the campers are gonna have a blast this summer! :) Shout out to the wonderful YWiC staff for making it all possible!

YWiC Middle School Class of 2012

Friday.

This time I had lunch with Alex, my FEP mentor from last year. We went to Long Life cafe. It was AMAZING!  There was dim sum, kung pao chicken stuff, sushi, and spring rolls! Oh, Alex is really awesome too! ;) He was really helpful, and always had genuine advice last year. I was glad I got to catch up with him and that I've been able to keep in touch with him since last year. 

Cute little lobby area in my building

"Fortitude is the will of mind to stand for what is right." - Wes Fessler