#SWE internship

[addierose444]

What's In My Backpack: SWE Intern Edition

This is the intern edition of the what’s my backpack post I wrote last fall! There is definitely a good bit of overlap between the two setups, but also some key differences. For folks who are new, this summer I am working as a software engineering intern at Microsoft on the OneNote Integrated Experiences (ONIX) team. To read more about my daily routine as a SWE intern, check out the post I wrote last week.  

Starting off with the bag, I’ve been using the OneNote branded Hershel Settlement Backpack that I received as an intern gift. Unlike the other Microsoft swag sold at the company store, the decal was printed and applied on campus in a maker space. The backpack has a 23-liter capacity and aside from being well built and comfortable to carry has no bells and whistles. My main gripe with the backpack is that it is just a bit too simplistic in that it is missing a padded laptop sleeve and organizational pockets. The backpack simply consists of the main compartment with an unpadded laptop sleeve and a small exterior pouch with a key clip. 

Inside the laptop sleeve, I carry “my” Surface Book 3. I mostly use the laptop for Teams calls and messages. For actual development, I use my desktop computer as it has more processing power. The desktop is right next to me in my office at work, but I connect to it from my laptop using Remote Desktop so I can use a single mouse and copy text between the two. I don’t really use the laptop outside of work, but feel a bit better about carrying it back and forth just in case I need to work from home. I don’t like the basic mouse and keyboard that I was provided with, so I use my personal mouse instead (more about that later) and the laptop keyboard. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the Surface Book, the screen is detachable and can be used as an oversized tablet. I’ve used the tablet mode on occasion to watch training videos from the comfort of one of our beanbag chairs.

At the bottom of the backpack, I carry a lightweight sweatshirt and if necessary a raincoat. The sweatshirt is actually the same Smith sweatshirt I featured in my last what’s in my backpack post. You can shop for your own Smith merch at the Smith bookstore located on the lower level of the campus center or online. As for the raincoat (Marmot Minimalist Jacket), it’s made of GORE-TEX which ensures that my backpack (specifically the laptop inside) stays dry. I do get a little wet though as the jacket doesn’t zip when I have it over my backpack. I only pack/wear the raincoat on days where rain is in the forecast (a common occurrence in Seattle), but also keep a small umbrella in my bag just to play it safe. I haven’t used them a ton, but my polarized sunglasses (SunCloud Loveseat) are another backpack staple of mine. 

While my headphones (Bose QC 35IIs) are often either on my ears or around my neck, I still carry the case around to hold some miscellaneous items. (Again, recall how the backpack doesn't have much in the way of organizational pockets). Inside the case, I carry my headphone wire, a pen, my mouse (Logitech M320), my multitool (Gerber Dime), my spork (Eat’NTool), hand cream (Welda Skin Food), and a mini first aid kit. The reason I carry my mouse back and forth is so that I can still use it with my personal laptop as I really can’t stand trackpads. The two other items that just regularly live in my headphone case are a thumb drive and a USB C to USB A adapter.

One item that I never use outside of work, but still carry back and forth is my Microsoft tumbler. The kitchen (where I make my morning tea) is on the way to my office, so it seems a bit silly to walk to my office just to turn around and go back to the kitchen. I carry a water bottle (Studio Oh! Boho Llama Duo) as well, but don’t really use it at work as I just use my Microsoft tumbler for hydration (mostly sparkling water) instead. At this point carrying a water bottle is just habitual and in my view just a good thing to do. I’ve occasionally used it to water my office plant and it’s nice to have for the days where I’ve had to run to the bus. At the top of the bag where it can’t be crushed, I carry my lunch. As explained last week, I have a Stasher sandwich bag for my sandwich and a Stasher snack bag for my vegies (either baby carrots or sliced red pepper). 

In the front pouch, I carry my phone (Google Pixel 5a with 5g), mask (when I’m not wearing it), hand sanitizer, and wallet (Mywalit Magic). When in the office I am required to wear my Microsoft badge, but it otherwise lives in the front pouch as well. Inside my wallet, I carry the normal things like my driver’s license, health insurance card, debit cards, credit cards, and some cash. I also continue to carry my student ID (Smith One Card) for student discount purposes. It hasn’t actually been useful yet because it doesn’t have an expiration date which was required by one place I went. (I still got the student discount by logging into Moodle to demonstrate that I’m an active student). Intern-specific wallet items include my room key card, Seattle Bouldering Project punch card, Microsoft meal cards, and ORCA card (for Seattle public transportation). So yeah, my wallet is a bit full at present! 

[1o1percentmilk]

they say it's a "phone call to discuss the position teehee" but yOU can't trick me! i know as soon as i walk in there i'm gonna be fighting for my life

[pshcomforts]

➳ afterglow | psh. — requested

non!idolsunghoon x olderfem!reader (feat. mark from nct)

“tell me this love is worth the fight”

synopsis: you forgot a special celebration with sunghoon, leading you guys to argue.

warnings/content: written in third pov. angst to fluff! slightly suggestive at the end (but nothing happens). age gap! (sunghoon’s 21, and reader’s 23). cursing! not proofread. sunghoon doubts himself :(

comments, likes, and reposts are appreciated :)

word count: 3.5k

a/n: message request.

༘˚⋆𐙚｡masterlist⋆.✧˚

current song playing: afterglow by taylor swift

↻ ◁ II ▷ ↺

1:28 ───────|──────────── -2:14

tick. tick. tick.

the clock ran faster within each minute y/n glanced back at it.

a sigh left her throat as she focused back onto her computer — typing in data to keep the files updated.

the girl worked an office job in her early twenties. it wasn’t as ideal, but for a paid internship, she had to take it.

months had passed since she started the job, and whispers of a promising position had been hinted each day she walked in.

and since then, y/n’s attempted to keep her score of being a trusting employee on a streak by staying past office hours.

she was a workaholic, if you will.

but who could blame her? the pay was good, and the work was her field of interest.

however, today was not one of those days she was willing to stay late for.

it couldn’t.

today marked her 1000 day anniversary with her boyfriend, park sunghoon.

her lovely, patient boyfriend who was younger than her by two years. the boy was in his early twenties, barely getting the hang of life with college.

a few significant dates had already been missed with the internship in the way, so she couldn’t possibly miss this one.

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

a quick buzz formed in y/n’s pockets, allowing her to take a swift glance at her phone.

⇢ ˗ˏˋ 1000 day celebration with hoonie ੈ♡˳ ࿐ྂ

she groaned out a sigh as she felt a sudden pressure weigh in at her heart.

“just a little longer,” her voice mumbled before staring down at the time.

[ 4:37pm ] — it beamed.

just a few hours left and she’d soon be in sunghoon’s forgiving arms.

“hey y/n,” a deep voice called out to her, snapping the girl out of her guilt-eating thoughts.

she turned to her superior, mark, who was wearing a friendly smile.

“yeah?” she tried to sound cheerful.

“i know you get off soon, but with your hard work noticed, i was wondering if you could help out with a little more paper work?” he uttered with puppy eyes. “it’s just.. the way you file and organize suits how i usually go in on it. would it be okay?”

y/n froze in her tracks, conflicted with her options — leave work as planned for the important date with sunghoon, or further impress the manager for a permanent job.

“it wouldn’t take long, would it?” she chewed her cheek, lips almost bleeding with how much she awaited for an answer.

mark gave a light chuckle. “no, i wouldn’t make you stay too late, y/n. you always do that to yourself.”

the girl awkwardly laughed in return, murmuring empty words of how much effort she was willing to put in for the company before he left her with the paperwork.

her original plan of leaving early from such an exhausting shift had taken a pause as she huffed at the amount of files in front of her.

“shouldn’t take too long..,” she tried to reassure under her breath.

in seconds, y/n dove into the piles of paperwork — attempting to finish on time.

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

[ 6:48pm ]

time was slipping through her fingers and the girl wasn’t even noticing it.

minutes passed within each time she glanced back at the clock, irking her to go quicker.

she had to finish on time, she just had to, at least before 9:30pm.

[ 8:21pm ]

coworkers around were now finishing their shift, leaving their cubicles to clock out for the night — leaving y/n with a few others.

“come on, i’m almost there.” she whispered to herself, sweat nearly dripping down her face with how much work she was powering through.

“good night, y/n!” — a few workers would beam to her, causing her to give a quick wave before going back to her job.

[ 9:18pm ]

the whole building was nearly abandoned now. the only remaining employees were mark, y/n, and about two more workaholics.

she was almost done. almost.

with such little time left, panic began to exude in the girl’s body.

“12 more minutes.. please,” she sighed.

a quick glance to the time was made before she decided to shut down every time displayed in front of her.

it was risky, but looking at the clock would only emit more anxiety to finish.

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

soon enough, the filing job had run its course, and y/n was done.

“finally!” she beamed, stretching out every bone in her body.

her tired eyes glanced everywhere for the time before she realized her method of avoidance from earlier.

“did i make it..?” she questioned, but with every nervous breath she took, it was obvious she had no hope she did.

slowly, the girl lifted her phone to check the time.

[ 10:03pm ]

her fatigued body froze at the bright screen before feeling it defrost with a shiver to the spine.

she felt her breath get heavy as she searched for a message from sunghoon — just anything that may ease the guilty pressure on her heart.

but nothing.

no messages, no calls — nothing.

y/n bit her teeth together, clenching her jaw in regret.

sunghoon had been looking forward to their 1000 day celebration, and she failed him.

a shaky sigh left her throat as her hands fisted in shame.

“hey y/n,” a voice spoke from behind, causing her body to tense.

“oh, hey mark.” she murmured back, mind still flooded with sunghoon.

“you’re still here? i got your files, you’re good to go,” he responded. “by the way, i really appreciate your work here. i hope the ceo considers you here long term.”

y/n sighed in relief as a reply, body taking its final hit of exhaustion from sitting all day.

“you’re a great worker,” mark continued with a polite smile.

a few rewarding compliments remained to run through his mouth, allowing her to get a slight ego boost.

she beamed a smile towards him, truthfully forgetting about how much she had failed sunghoon.

“i hope to see more of this from you soon, y/n. we’re the last here so i gotta lock up.” her superior uttered to her.

the girl nodded her head before gathering her things and leaving for the boy to do as he said.

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

the drive home from work was quiet.

y/n was worn out from the constant piles of paper work and to be quite frank, all she wanted was some peace and quiet.

the only thing that ran through her mind was how much mark had sweet talked to her about her work skills.

it was promising to hear all of that, and she couldn’t wait to tell it to her boyfriend — her boyfriend who waited hours for her.

but her energy was still wearing thin. every muscle movement she made in the car caused an aching bruise to form.

so when she arrived home, her hands slowly creaked the door open.

a sigh left her throat as she entered in.

everything was quiet and sunghoon couldn’t be found until she glanced to her left. the boy was sitting on the couch in silence, eyes lost in a daze and face blank with no expression presented.

then it hit her.

her blameworthy actions came back to guilt her once she found her person stiffly sitting down.

y/n took a gulp. she was the older one, but she knew how he was during arguments like these. she knew he was one to stay silent just to keep his emotions together.

“hoonie..?” the girl nervously mumbled, almost a whisper to his ears.

sunghoon only stood with a click to the tongue, jaw firmly clenching as he walked to the kitchen.

the atmosphere was quickly filled with tension in how much he ignored her.

“hoon?” she called out once more, only to get a slight glance back as a response.

the boy continued to gulp down some type of beverage, actively letting her presence go unnoticed.

y/n groaned in return, watching his petty efforts become the consequences of her own actions.

but truth be told, she was tired.

she was working all day, back to back with no break whatsoever and all she wanted was to get some sleep.

“sunghoon,” she sighed. “please, i’m sorry. i’m exhausted and work just kept pulling me back. my superior wanted me to file more before my shift ended and i-“

“work this and work that, that’s all we’re gonna talk about isn’t it?” hoon angrily spat, leaving a bitter taste in his mouth. the boy ignored the mention of mark with how pissed he was.

✩ ‘fighting with a true love’ ✩

all y/n could do was pause at his outburst.

“i’m sorry, sunghoon, i’m tired and-“

“and i was waiting for you all day to come home for our celebration.” he cut off once more, teeth biting down to mush away the heart aches.

✩ ‘is boxing with no gloves’ ✩

sunghoon finally turned after softly slamming the drink down onto the counter. his darkened eyes met hers, burning holes before quickly tearing up.

“i know..,” she bit her lips, shutting her eyes to avoid her heart breaking at his gaze. “i’m so sorry, sunghoon, i am. i just couldn’t leave, staying after hours just promised me a permanent position. please understand, this is what i’ve been working for.”

hoon scoffed. “are you in a relationship with me or your work?”

she exasperated a sigh before walking to the living room and slumping down on the couch. almost instantly, her body felt the soft, cushioned seats that welcomed her — allowing her to feel drained again.

“please, hoon, i’m tired-“

“that’s how our arguments always end, doesn’t it? you forget a date of ours, then you come home and you say you’re tired, then we’re fine the next day.” the male ridiculed, walking to the living room as well. “when is this gonna stop, y/n?”

“sunghoon..,”

“no, you’re saying you’re tired but i’m the tired one.”

y/n sighed as she sat up, body becoming depleted of energy. “i’m sorry but this internship is worth everything right now, and i’m doing so well with making an impression.”

“worth everything?” sunghoon reiterated with a shaky tone. “even our relationship?”

✩ ‘chemistry till it blows up, till there’s no us’ ✩

“what? no, hoon, that’s not what i meant.”

“is that what our relationship means to you?”

she looked up to his eyes that were inflamed with betrayal. “this job defines my future, sunghoon. this job is what i’ve always wanted, can’t you see that?” a hint of irritation was made present in her voice, showing that her sleep deprivation was irking her to be annoyed.

sunghoon sniffled, quickly wiping away a few tears so his girl wouldn’t feel troublesome. “i see that, y/n, i see it very clearly. i feel like i never see you anymore, in fact. you’re barely here.” his tone was firm, hinting that he was reflecting the energy back.

“this job is for our future too, sunghoon. i’m working to get a good position for financial stability.” y/n uttered, feeling her droopy eyes threaten to close. her mind quickly recalled back to their slight age gap as she felt the weigh of carrying it all on her shoulders.

“our future? you really think there’s gonna be a future with us when i never see you anymore?” the boy murmured, fists clenching with every word that left his mouth.

he hated what he was saying, but it was the truth.

however, her heart still dropped when she processed what he had uttered.

“you don’t think there’s a future with us..?” she took a particularly harsh gulp as tears finally streamed down her cheeks.

“you’re never here, y/n. how can there be a relationship if it’s only one person putting effort?” sunghoon responded, tears taking its fall for him as well.

the two stayed quiet.

no more raised voices and no more hushed words.

they both had reasons to be mad at each other, but they couldn’t see the others point.

y/n didn’t know what to say. her reasonings were being constantly repeated, but it seemed like it wasn’t going through his head — same with him.

“hoonie.., i’m sorry that i’m not there a lot but, i.. i’m just trying really hard to impress my superior and it’s-“

“your superior?” his soft voice squeaked. “mark..?”

the girl raised her head to peer up at him, only to find his thick brows slightly scrunched while his lips were molded into a frown.

“yes,” she sighed. “mark.”

“you stayed late on our 1000 day celebration with mark?” he uttered, voice weakening at the thought.

“yes, but mark’s just my superior. he has to be there when i work late.”

sunghoon scoffed, shaking his head with a low chuckle. no words could be formed with how much jealousy was seeping through him.

“sunghoon.”

he turned his body away from hers as a response, jaw tensing with every envy thought that she unintentionally spent their 1000 day celebration with mark.

“park sunghoon,” y/n firmly called, causing him to look at her. “you can not seriously be jealous right now.”

“jealous that he got to have time with you, and i didn’t? ridiculous.” he let a small puff of air slip by his lips before gazing back at her.

at this point, the girl was completely worn out. she wanted silence, and this argument was bringing her to her limit.

“you really can’t be jealous of mark. i’m your girlfriend, he’s a coworker; and i’m only there late because of how hard i’m working to secure this job, to ensure our financial stability.” she repeated, voice slightly raised as her patience wore thin. her body was begging to rest, and she didn’t know how much longer she could take this quarrel.

sunghoon stayed quiet, considering his choice of words before mumbling, “how much does he make?”

they locked eye contact and y/n instantly saw his teary, red eyes that begged for reassurance.

“what?” she softly asked, word almost incoherent with how much her heart shattered at his gaze.

the tall male shamed his head away, tears painting his cheeks more as he reluctantly croaked — “nothing, never mind.”

“hoon-“

she stood, body barely standing on its own,

but her boyfriend walked away with a murmur — “good night.., gorgeous.”

he still said her favorite nickname even through all of this.

before y/n could say more, sunghoon had already disappeared from her sight — walking into their bedroom without another word.

she sighed whilst sitting back down onto the couch. her boyfriend had just built a barricade around his feelings, shutting himself out to push her away and she wasn’t sure on what to do.

✩ ‘i blew things out of proportion now you’re blue’ ✩

but if he needed space, then she was gonna give it.

✩ ‘why’d i have to break what i love so much?’ ✩

so she settled down onto the couch, situating between the extra pillows and blankets kept in the closet to not disturb him any further.

it wasn’t as snug as her bed with her favorite boy, but it’d do for now.

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

[ 12:52am ]

y/n was half asleep on the couch now after having dreaded doubts about their argument.

her body faced away from the opening side, giving her no possible way of catching sunghoon if he were to get up for a bathroom run.

she felt cold and stiff without him. nothing would be able to comfort her as much as his embracing warmth could.

the girl softly sniffled, feeling tears well up in her tired eyes while attempting to go to sleep.

as her heart laid heavy with her, sudden feet movements were heard from her opposing side — hinting that her boyfriend had gotten up.

she figured that it was most likely for a quick bathroom break but when she felt his arms suddenly engulf her into his chest, the weighed feeling was relieved of her.

his soft breaths against her neck only acquired the way he couldn’t sleep without her.

“sunghoon?” y/n faintly whispered against him.

“we’re still mad at each other but i just can’t sleep alone tonight,” he hoarsely said back.

a smile curled onto her lips as she turned her body to face him. the boy’s eyes were closed but she could still find traces of tinted red all around.

✩ ‘it’s on your face, and i’m to blame’ ✩

“hoonie.”

✩ ‘i need to say’ ✩

slowly, he fluttered his eyes awake with a quiet sniffle in his nose. he raised his brows ever so slightly as a response, shattering her heart in the process.

she leaned in before placing a soothing kiss on the tip of his nose.

“let’s talk,” y/n uttered, lifting her drowsy body up to sit.

sunghoon softly groaned. “it’s late, baby.” he said in a low, attractive voice.

“i know, but i want us to talk this out so we can go to sleep without any worry.”

she pulled her boyfriend up so he could sit up as well.

he exhaled a heavy sigh of his before letting the quiet atmosphere take over for a second.

“you deserve someone who can provide more,” he broke out, causing her gaze on him to immediately soften. “someone who isn’t just a lost twenty-one year old figuring out life, someone like mark.”

sunghoon felt tears spark at the rim of his eyes once his confession was let out. “you shouldn’t be..,” he paused, throat closing at his reality check. “you shouldn’t be with someone like me. i’m still a college student and.., you just deserve better.”

y/n instantly felt her heart drop with his worried doubt. she let the boy stream down tears so he could cry it out and once he did so, she muttered — “hoon, please look at me..,”

but he avoided her stare, just for a second so he wouldn’t break down again. and when he finally looked at her, she embraced him into her arms.

she wrapped herself tightly around him, hinting that she wouldn’t ever leave like he said.

the male hugged back, arms clinging around her waist as he quietly sobbed a little more.

when y/n pulled away, her hands quickly cupped his cheeks — making him look at her with his eyes that were sparkled from the tears.

“you’re doing enough, sunghoon.” she confirmed with a sniffle. “everything you’re doing is enough. i don’t need or will ever want mark, i like working like this because it gives me motivation, and i love you.”

✩ ‘i’m the one who burned us down’ ✩

her last three words were emphasized before she contently sighed and continued — “i’m sorry that i stayed late on our anniversary. i shouldn’t have because i know this day was important to you too. i’m really sorry.”

✩ ‘but it’s not what i meant, i’m sorry that i hurt you’ ✩

the boy pressed his lips together to form a bread smile. “i’m sorry too, you’re a hard worker and that’s what i love about you. i shouldn’t have said those things earlier.”

y/n wore a half smile, shaking her head afterwards to say, “i know my work schedule is difficult with yours but we’ll make it through this okay? we always do because nonetheless, this is my life and i love that you’re in it.”

the girl placed a sweet and reassuring kiss on his cheek as she said, “you’re my boyfriend and i intend to keep it that way until we hit another chapter.”

✩ ‘i don’t wanna lose, i don’t wanna lose this with you’ ✩

sunghoon’s last tears dropped for the night as he pulled her into a crying kiss.

his lips touched hers and he immediately felt relieved. a quiet groan slipped by his lips in the process, allowing y/n to smile into their kiss.

his hands firmly cupped her cheeks while hers were entangled into his messy hair.

his thick brows were deliciously scrunched together in satisfaction before they both pulled away.

“another chapter, hm? want to start that right now?” the boy teased with a grin.

“sunghoon!” she shouted back, allowing her boyfriend to chortle out laughter.

“i’m kidding!” he flashed a wide smile at her before murmuring, “i’m tired anyway.”

y/n playfully rolled her eyes before smacking his arm. “sure.., let’s just go to sleep.”

she dragged sunghoon to their bedroom, slumping her body down immediately after.

the male giggled and laid down on his side, pulling her into his chest like he always did. her hands gently rested on him as he placed chaste kisses on her forehead.

“good night, pretty girl.”

“good night, baby.”

✩ ‘meet me in the afterglow’ ✩

★・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・★

[icarusgf]

also i have 2.5 weeks left of my internship and i’m fully not gonna finish my project bc my code doesn’t pass the fucking tests and idk what’s wrong and it’s so frustrating and. no one knows what’s wrong and UGH and i got sick so i didn’t go into work today and i’m not gonna go tmr and then friday no one goes in so no one can help me bc ??? i can tfigurs this shit out on my own and so then i’m basically losing a whole week and ugh i feel so bad bc i had so much time to work on this but i spent sm time just figuring out what the fick i was doing and how a swe internship works and how tech companies work and UGH i feel like i didn’t make any progress or do much of anything even tho ik i did and i hate corporate work but i can’t tell if i hate swe just bc of this company and swe is actually fine or if i wouldn’t like any swe job. also this company is based in china and like i’m chinese obv but i’m not LITERATE and so many of the documents r in chinese and i CANT READ THEM and the majority of the teams and the workers r in china so meetings r rly late and ppl work dorm like 8 am to 12 am nd every one in the office here r mostly middle aged immigrants from china which again isn’t a bad thing i’m literally chinese but they speak chinese just regualry in the office and i rly can’t follow that well esp when it’s technical stuff and UGH.

[sugar-free-grape-lemonade]

I just bought 42 20oz bottles of Diet Coke and mtn dew zero bc my local grocery store was having a huge sale, so now they’re all in my room bc my mom is anti diet soda and I would get in trouble if she knew I had them (I can’t wait until I move out next year and start working bc this is stupid).

Also it’s my birthday tomorrow, and I’ve gotten a lot smaller than I was on my birthday last year, which is cool, but I still have so far to go. It’s not a big one or anything, just 19, and it feels weird because the last 3 have all been big ones, but this year it’s just kinda like eh, you can drink in all of Canada now, but not the country you live in.

Side note, fuck amazon, yeah corporate greed and all that, but apparently I got auto rejected from a SWE job there bc there’s a 6 month cooldown from when you were last under consideration for a job, and that sucks bc I was interviewing with them still in April for a summer internship, but I got rejected in the final round. There’s nothing anywhere that says that when you apply, I just learned that this is common knowledge from a recruiter >:( what in the heck I wanted to be a corporate slave and they won’t even give me a chance

Anyways this is a clusterfuck of thoughts, to bring it back home, I hope I don’t drink all the sodas in like a week lmao I just fixed my caffeine tolerance I don’t wanna have to deal with withdrawal again

[realtalk-princeton]

is it weird/okay if i have literally no extracurriculars or anything outside of class? i feel like that's not advised and/or would be looked down upon, but it's so tempting to have a super chill pton experience with a probably high gpa. i'm specifically concerned about career outcomes more than ~the college experience~. am i at all competitive for a cool internship/job without having extracurriculars?

Response from Olive:

this varies a little bit depending on what you're field you're trying to get into. for most, they prefer to see that you were involved in at least 1-3 activities depending on your level of involvement with them even if it's just being a member. for cos-related fields like swe then coding projects are something they might look for. networking can also be super important or helpful to any field. although a high gpa is great, it's not really enough since there are many people that have one while balancing other activities. not saying it would be impossible to find a cool internship/job, but definitely be prepared to put the work in to get past the application stage and receive interviews.

[082112]

Been rotating between feeling aimlessly lonely & sad recently and warm and filled with comfort (truly the it is so over —> we are so back cycle) and hence I have not gone and written the entry I have been intending to (in drafts for over 2 weeks now, although I really hope I will) about life updates and such. So, in short: I am staying at Outer Coast, and I will be in SF starting January for a SWE internship. Woot woot! I got what I wanted!

On the internship: a mix of relief, excitement about the riches (ie a decent hourly rate) I shall roll about in (ie go to a spa and get a haircut), and being in SF. Also a terror: of being in a new place (SF scary) mostly alone, of “selling out” as a callback to my hatred and jealously of those who chose SWE in freshman year, and the truest deepest fear - that this is a step away from throwing myself towards the things I believe I am most interested in and move me deeply - literature, history, physics, the beauty of the world and the fields we use as means to contemplate it. Instead I will be comfortably making money working for a productivity app. Really, there’s nothing wrong with taking a break, and the company is great and apparently has great perks. But I’m so used to the sense that in order to make progress I must constantly and relentlessly throw myself at things (and the fact that I always feel induitably and irreconcilably behind) that the thought of deviating from that makes me skittish and afraid. Ah well - it is truly going to be a good thing, I believe, and I should direct myself more to this belief.

A slight aside - read the Rhodes Scholars 2024 profiles. Was seized by the same old urge to desire it and scrutinize their accomplishments and compare myself to each one. Recognized immediately it probably wasn’t healthy; did it anyway; set me in a weird mood for the rest of the day where once again I was preoccupied with means of accomplishments and the metrics and laurels I could accumulate. Released it by the next day, or perhaps more aptly came to my senses, and now I am able to once again see a life that is beautiful and meaningful and hopeful without the approval of the Rhodes selection committee. Yippee!

Anyway, I was thinking just now about how I find direction and purpose, and how aimless I felt tonight after Netflix partying an anime movie with Eric, and letting myself think and feel bits and snippets of half-thoughts about returning to MIT. It’s not like everything was perfect there, though I remember it only piecewise: that I was often in intense pain, I remember as a fact, physical and emotional and mental, but the actual memory of said pains is partial and ghostly. But the thought crossed my mind just now that I think I felt more (or at least in retrospect now feel) that there searching for the meanings of the world was intuitive and easy; it came in the rush of academics and classes and profound revelations and readings and problem sets, and of course dreams of the future in graduate education and academia. And I’ve had this sense recently that perhaps I am shallow and awful and horrible for feeling this the most deeply (and tried punishing myself, see: almost leaving Outer Coast in spite of myself for wanting a transcript for grad school). But I’m thinking that although academia is nowhere near constitutively reflective of the real world, me resonating deeply with the intellectual engagement found in some parts of academia + higher institutions of learning is not at all a bad thing. That too should be celebrated; I owe myself so much love. But yes, TLDR - it seems, in retrospect, easier to find meaning when presented in contexts where I can intellectualize it deeply, and that is not a bad thing. And yet it is also important in the world here, where I am now, to find meaning also. :)

[soda-boots]

Sorry I was never good like you

"Can we keep up with the ruse" 'Sober' - Lorde

I know I'm having a moment when I'm on social media a lot more than usual, feel a bit detached, more bored than usual and have the urge to put on 'Melodrama' to try and make myself feel better.

Not me getting a text mid-tumblr moment, can I regurgitate in peace.

The summer as a whole has been great actually. I can't fully complain. I went to Alton Towers for my birthday (I just remembered that I never paid for the photos. Done now).

I think the emotion is gone now. There's basically no literary flow happening sadly. Weird that I haven't felt strong enough about something emotionally to write about. Should I be concerned ? The only thing recently that has left me exhausted are these blasted internship applications. So much effort to do, like sure the initial application takes like what 10 minutes maybe (if they don't ask me to write those damn essay questions on why them. Babes be so for real right now). But it's those online assessment (shout out to when I got rejected by Costa for them not thinking I would be a good barista after there online assessments) , those patronising and arduous psychometric tests, situational judgement assessment, culture fit matches, verbal and aptitude quizzes. Ranging from analysing copious amounts of data in an incomprehensibly short amount of time, non-verbal reasoning games.

"pick which matches you best"

"I like working in a diverse environment"

"I get easily bored with routine"

Why are you asking me basically 200 personality questions, at some point it's just too tedious and too much. And I dance around for them and perform these tasks because I genuinely want these things. So far I've only gotten two rejections but I haven't applied to that many places yet (it's only September after all). I'm optimistic that something meant for me will come eventually (I only did get my summer job in like April I think. I did apply in February/March). However, did I really get rejected from Barclays because of my personality (like wtf). Got an Amazon rejection too (but I don't really care cause I don't want to work there and also I'm still not sure I want to be a SWE plus I never practiced hackerrank anyway).

Like this whole process (even just at the start) is already jading me about the world of work in technology. However, something I like will come anyway. Plus I do plan on doing a masters and/or a PhD (how do I even go about making this happen though. I should find out), so I have time (I hope). I should try and do a research internship, that would be good (and a good stepping stone for the masters/phd). So far not many successes but we're early on and I hope things only get better from here.

I should finally work on making that website for my show over the next few months, and actually learn some data structures and algorithms (and leetcode *vom*)

Uhh I love Melodrama so much (I'm on Sober II now).

[sahasulagna2023]

Got a SWE internship offer for next summer.

[addierose444]

Summer 2022 Microsoft SWE Internship

First of all, wow, this summer has just flown by. It seems like only yesterday that I was packing up my dorm room and boarding a plane to Seattle. Speaking of, you may be interested in my posts about moving to Washington state and about college essentials. The crazy thing is that in a week's time, I’ll be back at Smith starting up my senior year of college. I’ll need to reflect a bit more, but right now everything just feels surreal. While I’m excited to reunite with some friends and have some classes to look forward to, I’m frankly not ready for the new semester. Maybe I should read what I wrote in the past about preparing for a new semester! Fortunately, there are still a few more weeks before classes actually start. I’m just headed back early for two weeks of ResLife training. 

I just finished up my internship last Friday, but wanted to get an initial blog post out about my experience. Overall it’s been one of my best summers to date and I have to admit that turning in my badge and leaving the office was a bit sad. If you’ve not been following along, I’ll start by getting you up to speed. For the past twelve weeks, I’ve been living in Seattle and working for Microsoft as a software engineering intern. Here’s a bit more about a typical day in my life as a Microsoft SWE intern. The other thing to know is that I was a returning Microsoft intern, as I’d done a remote Explore internship last summer and received a return offer. I’ll likely do a bit more reflecting on the experience in its entirety in a future blog post, but much of this post is derived and extended from the learning slide of my final intern presentation. And if you're wondering why everything is so vague, well my project and work done by my larger team are confidential.

As for my team, I was working on the OneNote Integrated Experiences (ONIX) team. As I’ve been a OneNote user and enthusiast for six years, it was honestly so cool meeting and working with OneNote engineers and PMs. As for why I love OneNote, it's the pairing of a flexible notes canvas with a strong hierarchical organization system. My favorite features include copy link to page and section groups. I could go on, but will instead redirect you to a post I wrote about how I use Microsoft OneNote as a student. 

A high-level learning from the last two summers is simply the value of an internship. When done right, internships are just an incredible opportunity to learn skills, gain experience, and frankly just have fun. As an intern, most of your time is spent working on a dedicated intern project. These projects are obviously scoped for an intern but are designed to have a real business impact. As an intern, you work most closely with your mentor, but also get the experience of being on a real software engineering team. (I’ll touch on this a bit later). Being an intern has its perks in that everyone wants to support you and help you to have a great summer. At the same time, I’ve definitely felt like a real and valued member of the team. Colleagues have even told me that they’d forgotten I was even an intern. 

In my view internships are all about learning. However, as interns, we also aim to have a real business impact and write shippable code. I got my core product ready for internal dogfood (testing), but due to an FY23 strategy pivot, my feature crew’s product won’t be shipping. As a person with a lifelong commitment to learning, I’ve been able to frame things in terms of all that I've learned. As a student, I’m frankly used to working on learning projects that are pretty much just used by me. Speaking of school projects, check out my favorites page. That's not to say that the strategy pivot was easy as I do want to have an impact beyond my own self-development and was excited about the possibility of code I've written reaching real users. The pivot was also difficult because I genuinely enjoyed the product we were building. 

​Starting off with technical skills, I learned TypeScript, React, and Redux. For those unfamiliar, TypeScript is a strongly typed programming language maintained by Microsoft that builds on JavaScript. I first heard of TypeScript last fall when researching Angular for my software engineering class (CSC 223), but this summer was my first real exposure to it. I had some experience with JavaScript, so that definitely helped. For the most part, I just learned TypeScript from reading code in our shared codebase. As for React, it’s “a JavaScript library for building user interfaces” and is maintained by Meta. While I’m not a fan of Meta as a company (or of their products for that matter), I do think React is actually useful. Redux is another open-source JavaScript library and it’s used “for managing and centralizing application state.” To learn the basics of these JavaScript libraries, I started out with the React tutorials and Redux tutorials recommended to me by my manager. Working through these tutorials was definitely helpful, but most of the learning came from actually working on my project. If you’re newer to programming, you may be interested in these computer programming learning resources I compiled. Post internship I’m also much more comfortable working with APIs and have learned important techniques for debugging and troubleshooting web applications. ​Speaking of APIs, I made extensive use of the Microsoft Graph API for my project.

In addition to new technologies, working in an existing codebase with a real software engineering team was a totally new experience for me. I'd collaborated on code in software engineering classes but had pretty much only built things from scratch. In other words, the codebases were relatively small and could be fully understood. The nature of my project clearly demonstrated the value of leveraging existing code to enable new user experiences and that not everything needs to be built from the ground up. One of the hardest aspects of working in an active pre-production codebase with lots of dependencies was navigating the unexpected issues. As an intern, it was easy for me to assume I'd written bad code that either broke existing functionality or simply didn't work. I'm happy to report that I didn't cause issues or incidents and instead uncovered several bugs. The learnings here came from my investigations into the various issues and from engaging the relevant teams. 

As for the fun factor, in addition to interesting work, there are a number of fun activities planned for interns. Additionally, as an intern more informal events are organized by fellow interns. As for relevant posts, check out my summer 2022 photos and this post about various morale events. Outside of work, I also spent the summer bouldering which I was able to directly fund with a Microsoft intern benefit called Perks+. Unrelated to work, I also learned a lot from having to cook for myself. Specifically, I learned the importance of meal planning and came up with some simple meals that I enjoy.

[1o1percentmilk]

submitted applications for amazon and google swe internships but if i end up working there u guys have to shoot me

[xiangni]

October 26. 2022

- Oops I’m two days late but I’m going to write about it anyways.

- So.. I GOT THE INTERNSHIP LETS GOOO. I’m now an employee of an information technology department ^^~

- I called my dad first thing and told him everything. It was awesome!

- Then went to swe class and that wasn’t too bad. I liked it.

- OS class is god awfully boring. I’m so tired.

- J and I went and hung out at Starbucks for a few hours. That was really nice.

- We came back and played Super Smash bros and a couple other random switch games haha

- It was a good day

[icarusgf]

bro do you have any jobhunting/ interview tips

i wish i knew more but this was literally pure luck LOL i got one interview this year and it was for this position bc i don't think companies rly like hiring freshmen .. i can only speak towards swe/cs internship hunting but just start early (like start applying in august/sep 23 for summer 24 jobs), grind practice problems on hackerrank/leetcode, nd mass apply literally apply on anything u see lmao (and also write cover letters!!!!!).

[mianwo]

love it when devs leave in the javascript errors to show as actual errors to users

[realtalk-princeton]

as a sophomore in COS, i landed an internship at a start-up tech company, but not exactly for swe... should i be worried about my prospects of landing anything more technical for next year? without much experience, i was able to land a couple final round interviews this year for tech companies, but didn't get any offers, which was why i settled for my current offer. but as a junior, im worried not having relevant experience would be more frowned upon

Response from Chewy:

No need to worry. If you have personal technical projects that you are working on, those are very important for receiving offers in SWE jobs.

In fact, working at a startup is great because it shows companies that you are adaptable and can work well independently! Congrats on your offer.

[mbappe]

the world cup is really over tomorrow... that shit hurted