Noogler Orientation!

Tuesday, May 29. Man, oh man, how I've missed Google! 

This is the third summer that I am the Googleplex in Mountain View, CA.

• Summer 2010 - Google Computer Science Summer Institute (CSSI)
• Summer 2011 - Google Freshman Engineering Practicum (FEP)
• Summer 2012 - Google Engineering Practicum (EP)

I'm so excited to be back to Google - the land of free food, slides in buildings, cute dogs, smart people, and overall awesomeness! Employees at Google are called Googlers, so naturally new Google employees are called Nooglers. :) 

Noogler hat!

This note was on a lollipop :)

Every Noogler is gets a spiffy hat, and cute balloons at their desk. Pretty awesome right?

My workstation!

Maybe I should tell you a little bit about the Google Engineering Practicum(EP) program. EP is an 12-week internship program for rising sophomores majoring in computer science or electrical and computer engineering. EP interns get to experience what it is like to be a Googler by getting to work on a software project with a team of Googlers and 1 or 2 other EP interns. Interns also have the opportunity to attend technical talks and other classes for professional development. Unlike a normal software engineering internship, EP interns also get matched with a mentor, a Google engineer. This year there are around 90 EP interns spread out over 4 Google office locations: Boston, MA; Mountain View, CA; New York, NY; and Kirkland, WA. So cool!

Ok back to my first day at Google...

Orientation was scheduled for 9:45am. I woke up around 6:30am to ensure that I would get there on time. Instead of driving to work, my roommates and I decided to take the Google shuttle to work. Yes, Google has free shuttles that it's employees can use to get to and from work! Mind blowing, I know. Lucky for us the shuttle stop is conveniently located about a minute away from our apartment. We got to orientation right on time.

Double decker Google shuttle!

As we walked into the building, we saw a group of about 30 people standing and chatting. We thought they were just random interns, but it turns out that they were all EP interns! There, we were met by the awesome EP Program Manager, Carolyn. Yay, Carolyn! :) I've known her since CSSI, so it was good to see her again. We all followed Carolyn down the hallway where there were two stations: setting up accounts and getting our photos taken for our badges (we get our badges after about 4 weeks).

My badge from last year. It is holographic! :)

After that, we all gathered into a room for orientation. At orientation we all found out that we get to use the new Samsung Chromebooks for the duration of our internship. I was very excited! Since nobody really knew each other we first did introductions. We had to stand up and say our name, school, and anything fun we did before coming to our internship. I obviously told everyone that I go by Tasha, and that I go to New Mexico State University, and I added the fact that I drove from Las Cruces to San Jose with a stop in Vegas! Apparently we were ahead of schedule, so we also played the 2 truths and 1 lie game. My responses: I'm a vegetarian, I have the same birthday as Google, and I speak Spanish. Okay, you probably already know which is the lie, but I am not a vegetarian. That means that yes, I have the same birthday as Google. Crazy, huh?!

Lunchtime. We all went and had lunch at one of the nearby delicious, and free, cafes called Crave. I don't really remember what food we had, but I'm sure it was yummy. It always is! After lunch we went back to the room, where our project hosts met us. I learned that my EP podmate was Mari! Our hosts Roshni and Jon, who are really cool, took us back to the building that we would be working in and we chatted for a while about some of our project details. It was a bit overwhelming, but what they were showing us was so awesome! I'm not allowed to give many details about what I am working on, but I can say that I am/will be doing front end work for Google+!  BTW,  add me to your circles: http://gplus.to/tashan :)

My cover photo on Facebook. haha

At the end of the day, my roommates and I grabbed some dinner at a different cafe called Charlie's. Again, delicious! We caught the 7:00pm shuttle back to our apartment, and had to pinch ourselves to make sure that the whole entire awesome day wasn't just a dream!


"Fortitude is the guard and support of the other virtues." - John Locke