STSI Summer Intern Program
STSI had another opportunity to run through a summer internship program for college students this year. The first being the summer of 2016 with yours truly as their initial catalyst for the idea. This year I had the pleasure of welcoming UVA students, Emmett Dorlester and Jimmy Flores, into our work environment. I also had the personal experience of being a mentor for both of the rising seniors. With the new responsibility, I was both thrilled and anxious to be able to do anything I could to help them through the same productive experience I had as an intern.
Three months can seem like a good amount of time, but also relatively too short in the development field. After all the initial on-boarding and introductions, it was time to decide personal goals, managed using a trello board, as well as layout the itinerary for what they would be working on for their duration at STSI.
Learning Lab
What is Learning Lab?
The idea of this project was to create a couple of small applications to run on a mounted Raspberry Pi and be an initial placeholder for any further development. Consisting of a weather and traffic app, it was designed for those who are interested in picking up new technology skills. Some of the notable key stacks included: React.js, docker, git. The long term goal of Learning Lab is to host our very own first “hackathon” day.
Jimmy and Emmett, were exposed to how the development pipeline for modern software is produced at a high level. Granted it was an internal project, they were still introduced or able to build on their current knowledge of the gitflow model, concepts of tasking and backlogging, testing, CI pipeline management and more.
As the primary project and focus point for accomplishing goals, Learning Lab was naturally the most constructive task and project for the interns this summer.
AWS Summit
I had been to last years AWS Summit during my internship, and knew it had to be a part of this years summer internship program. Not only does it shine light on the dynamically growing industry in the cloud that is AWS, it gives anyone willing to attend an opportunity to integrate themselves within the community and learn more about each other as individuals and corporations. Jimmy’s personal blog excerpt on the subject matter displays the potential impact it has:
“Out of the hundreds of implementations of AWS I heard about at the summit, my favorite has to be about this company called “Brain Power” who is using Amazon Sage Maker, AWS Deep Lens and other AWS tools to create a product to help kids with Autism and ADHD. I found this to be compelling, as I have an interest in the ways machine learning can be used towards health issues, and find it very interesting in how it’s already being created and applied.”
I personally plan to attend the conference again next year, and would encourage the same to anyone who is interested in how Amazon is working to help push forward our use of technology.
Other Activities / Closing Thoughts
After weekly stand-ups, coordination, and a good amount of food; a lot of the three months burned through unnoticed. There was a small amount of time where we had Jimmy and Emmett onboard EPA’s PSS Project and make some headway in the frontend development using AWS tools such as CodeCommit. There they also gained soft skills through daily standup’s with STSI’s Chris Frey and Gary Waymire. They also made the effort to present the Learning Lab Application alongside me at STSI’s July All-Hands Meeting, and meet several members of the STSI family outside HQ. Overall, I found the experience in line with the interns to be just as valuable in terms of learning and moving forward in my career. I want to thank everyone involved, and can’t wait to see how this program develops.
