Networking outside my immediate team

Networking outside my team has been in two ways: making new connections and strengthening previous networks from past internships.
I have had so many in-person and remote intern events to support networking with full-time engineers and fellow interns. At the start of my internship, I signed up for the intern networking program where I was paired with a full-time employee from any organization in Microsoft. My connections through the program ranged from software engineers to Marketing managers. I organized coffee chats with these employees where I learned about the projects they were working on, their experiences at Microsoft, transitioning to full-time engineers, and general Microsoft work culture. One coffee chat that stood out to me throughout the summer was a chat I had with a full-time software engineer who studied Commerce for their Undergraduate degree, worked in Real-estate business, and pivoted into Technology two years ago. Listening to their non-traditional and very determined approach to learning coding and software development was fascinating. I was impressed by their unique background and how confident they were to share about it. Talking to them taught me about Microsoft’s value of a learning mindset because this employee told me how their willingness to learn and pick up anything new has supported their career pivot from business to software engineering. 

I have always thought of networking as adding more networks on the already existing networks. Every internship, I re-connect with people I networked with in previous internships to learn about their career changes since we last talked and catch up on their other life experiences. One of my biggest highlights from the internship was physically meeting the people I had kept in-touch with from my previous internship. All the two interns I worked with during the summer of 2021 were in-person this year and it was exciting to organize lunch and social events with our manager and the team we worked with in Microsoft Excel. Also, I got to meet my mentor from my freshman internship in 2020 who I kept in touch with even after that internship.