My initial reactions to my internship exerience

 The first week of my internship mainly comprised of setting up my development machine, orientation meetings, and learning about the project requirements.

There we over one thousand interns welcomed to Microsoft this week. One exciting aspect of such a large cohort was physically meeting some of the interns I had remotely met during the previous internships. Although I tend to be more reserved when I meet new people, it was interesting how I pushed myself to start conversations with different interns at the orientation meeting. One session of the orientation comprised of past Microsoft interns sharing advice with first-time interns. I was courageous to share advice on how to have a successful internship experience with other interns. This was a sign of the growth in my communication and public speaking skills I have obtained from my Lead Teaching Assistant position at Berea. I think back to how I would never have attempted to speak in such a large group during my first and second years. During this first week, I have seen the soft skills I have attained through my labor position and participation in different clubs at Berea become very helpful.

Another good example of applying these soft skills was yesterday when I was setting up my development machine with Android studio. I was getting a build error that was not written in the installation guide. I spent fifteen minutes searching online for possible solutions before I reached out to some of the software engineers who were authored the installation guide. I crafted a quick introduction about myself, my internship project, questions about the error, and added a screenshot of the error message. I received a response with possible solution after a few minutes of sending the messages. Such communication skills could only be obtained through a holistic education like one at Berea College. I learned how to concisely craft messages and emails from the different writing classes and I practiced these skills in different courses and labor positions.

So, what are my initial reactions to Microsoft after this first week? I am largely excited. I am happy to work on my internship project because it contains mobile phone application development which will be a new and challenging experience. I am excited to physically meet the different people I have virtually met in my past internships. Lastly, this internship will be a great way to apply my soft and technical skills.