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The Google Chronicles: Life of a Google Intern (Part 3) May 31, 2011

Welp, I have officially finished up my first two weeks at Google! I wish I could have posted an entry a bit before now to somewhat break up the journey between my last post and now, but unfortunately these couple of weeks have just been incredibly busy — in a good way. Hopefully I’ll be be able to summarize all that has happened in a concise manner without sacrificing the details. You’ll most likely notice a jumpier writing style this time around, too, simply to help cut down on the amount of content, but I’m sure no one will contest to that. Additionally, seeing as there’s still just way too much to fit into one post, in regards to both reading and writing, I’ll be splitting this into a couple posts. So on to the first portion!

So I finished up final exams a few weeks back. I could tell it was slightly more difficult to focus than usual, knowing that my internship was just around the corner. I was also trying to learn Linux as well, since Google works almost entirely on Linux these days. But of course I didn’t want to waste an entire semester of hard work just to do poorly on the final exams (the majority of which constituted at least a quarter of my final grade), so I eventually gained enough motivation to sit down and just get it done. My first two finals were unfortunately scheduled for 7:45 in the morning on the first exam days back-to-back, which also happened to be what I considered my two most difficult exams. While that was annoying, it was admittedly nice to get them out of the way so that I could better focus on my remaining exams.

During this time, it remained in the back of my head that I would soon be leaving some of the best friends I had ever had. I’m extremely grateful to have befriended so many new people, from my dorm hall to all of my classes and from all of the students I TA’d to all the other students hanging out in the Computer Science lounge. Truly, this was perhaps one of my best years. Not only had I met incredible people, but classes in general just seemed to have gone well. It’s difficult to muster the fact that I will be giving up the Aerospace degree after such a great semester. To receive A’s in all of these upper-level courses only to leave the major just doesn’t seem right. But I must remember that this isn’t about what I’ve already done but rather what I now want to do. While I may have the capabilities to excel in both majors, I’ve realized that my best interests lie in shifting my focus to what I really want to do with my life, not just what I can do. So here I say farewell to Aerospace Engineering. It’s been fun.

So with final exams taken and the last good-byes said, I headed home. It was strange going home this time, knowing that I wouldn’t be coming back in about a week as I usually had done the past two summers for summer classes. This would, in fact, be the longest I’d be away from campus since I first arrived as a freshman. Nonetheless, I looked forward to heading to California. Now it would just be a matter of unpacking, meeting up with a couple good friends, packing back up, and flying off. It was a nice two days at home, though. I decided to stop in at my high school and visit a few teachers, as I try to do at least once each year. It’s nice to be remembered by old teachers who are delighted to strike up conversation and see how things are going. Then I headed over to my best buddy’s place (yes, that is her official title) to catch up, as we had not seen each other since January. I had a wonderful time, as always, and can honestly say that not being able to see her again until mid-August was the only negative thing on my mind in regards to my internship. At least the night sky was clear enough to enjoy a moment of star-gazing.

So now with all the catching up done, the true journey was to begin. Having to drive out to the airport at 4:00 in the morning, I reasoned that there was no point in going to bed. Besides, I still needed to finish reinstalling Windows as well as installing Ubuntu to dual-boot into when I wanted to get some experience with Linux. I was able to get most of that done before it was time to head out. I must say, I still feel like a kid when I’m at the airport and on the airplane. This would only be my fourth time on an airplane, the last being four years prior, and I was greatly looking forward to observing all the physics I had been learning about in theory for the past three years. Unfortunately, I was not able to get a window seat, which was frustrating to say the least. However, interestingly enough, the older couple I was sitting next to noticed my Google shirt and informed me that their daughter was an employee at Google, allowing us to strike up conversation. Funny how small the world can seem sometimes.

Upon arriving in San Francisco, the first thing I noticed was the weather. This was no hot, sunny California weather. It was 53 degrees and windy! I was a bit disappointed, but fortunately it would warm up later in the week. The next step was heading to my new apartment. Once we got there, it was now just a matter of finishing up the leasing agreement and getting the keys. That didn’t take too long, and soon I officially had my own apartment. With the furniture service arriving ahead of time and setting up all the furniture, the apartment looked quite nice — a lot of open space still, but nice, nonetheless. And with that, all that was left was to explore the area. For the next few days, I visited a couple of the major attractions in California, including the beach and San Francisco. The weather had not gotten much better yet, so it was admittedly not the most pleasant of experiences. However, it was still nice to see this new world, if you will. It was especially amusing to be driving past all these big companies I’d hear about all the time, like Intel, Oracle, and McAfee. It made me feel at home in a way.

So now to get to the moment I’m sure you’ve all been waiting for — my first day as a Google intern. How unfitting it seemed that I would have to arrive at 8:00 in the morning (we are computer science majors after all), but with the anticipation, it wasn’t too terribly difficult to get out of bed. Luckily, I had already paid a visit to the Google campus, so I was at least somewhat knowledgeable of where I needed to be. I’m usually quite skilled at mapping locations in my head, but even still, I find difficulty in navigating the Googleplex. Arriving at the building where orientation was to begin, it was apparent that a line of interns was already forming past the doors. I was actually a bit surprised at how dressed-up a lot of these interns were, seeing as Google’s dress-code is essentially non-existent. Luckily I was styling in my nice polo.

So here comes the difficult part in this blog of mine. As I’m sure you could have guessed, Google has a very strict policy when it comes to sharing information with the outside world. While Google is a leading advocate in the access of information, it is highly contained internally. Thus, I’m going to have to be kinda vague here when I try to talk about any Google-specific material. Perhaps soon enough I will be able to disclose more details, but I think I can manage until then.

So back to my first day. On the list of to-dos was getting my employee badge, setting up my password, and eating food. Yes, sitting down and eating breakfast was indeed part of the schedule. While enjoying my first helping of Google’s renowned food, I would get to meet other interns who would also be partaking in the week of training before heading off to their respective office locations. It was really cool meeting all these other computer science majors from around the country. I certainly surprised myself by how many names I was able to remember, too.

Following, we were all to head into the conference room where we would begin the real orientation. Walking into the room, each intern had a chair assigned to him or her, including his or her brand-new laptop. Back in April, interns were asked to choose either a MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, or Lenovo ThinkPad. I had chosen the MacBook Air, but unfortunately there seemed to have been few in stock, so most interns who requested it got the slightly smaller MacBook Pro instead, with which I was perfectly okay. So with my shiny new MacBook now in front of me, orientation would get underway. A couple hours later, it was time for lunch! (Notice the slightly obvious jump there?) Again, I would get to enjoy more of Google’s amazing food and meet more interns. It was fun learning about everyone’s backgrounds and the teams with which they would be working.

Lastly on the list, it was time for all the interns to meet their mentors. Interestingly enough, however, my mentor would be on vacation that week. This wouldn’t be too much of a problem, however, since the first week of the internship consists mainly of training courses anyway. As the interns stood around, different mentors would come by, find his or her intern, and head out. During this time, I found myself grouping with a couple of other interns — Paul and Justin — whom I will be referencing a lot from here on out. We made the whole situation out to be quite amusing, seeing as we were almost like pets at the store waiting anxiously as mentors walked past, watching as they took us away. We were some of the last interns remaining. Eventually, Justin found his mentor, and it was just Paul and I who were left. We waited around some more. Only a few more minutes passed, however, before Paul’s mentor arrived, too. Then it was just I, or so I thought. Paul’s mentor would also happen to be the member of the team whom my mentor had asked to get me. So strangely enough, I had already befriended the other intern who would also be working on the same project as I would be.

As this Googler took us to our soon-to-be-office, he began disclosing the true details on what we would be working on this summer. Now I understood why the description of the team I was given way back in February was so vague. Turns out, we would be working on one of Google’s most secretive projects. So obviously I cannot mention anything else about what I’m working on this summer, at least for the time being. In fact, I couldn’t even talk about it with other interns until just recently! But I have to admit, it is pretty cool to be working on one of the few floors at the Googleplex that require special access. (We even get our own cafè on the floor!) Upon arriving at my new office, I got a quick introduction to the team with whom I would be working. Seeing my workstation for the first time was especially incredible. Google was even so kind as to put Google balloons on my desk so that everyone would know I was one of the new interns.

I played around with setting up my workstation for the next few hours before deciding to head home for the day. I’m certainly glad I started learning Linux, though. I was already feeling overwhelmed and intimidated and knew that I was going to have to crash-course myself on Linux if I was going to get caught up to speed. But that’s starting to get into a story for next time.

Overall, my first day at Google was just as I had expected; I was now both excited and scared. Though, I’ll be sure to get into those details in my next post, so stay tuned! =)